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The Rajah of Sangir, a village about fourteen miles southeast of the volcano, was an eye-witness of the eruption, and thus describes it:

About 7 P. M., on the 10th of April (1815), three distinct columns of flame burst forth near the summit of the mountain, all of them apparently within the verge of the crater: and after ascending, separately, to a very great height, united their tops in the air in a troubled, confused manner. In a short time the whole mountain next to Sangir appeared like a mass of liquid fire, extending itself in every direction. The fire and columns of flame continued to rage with unabated fury until the darkness, caused by the quantity of falling matter, obscured it about 8 P. M. Stones at this time fell very thick at Sangir, some of them as large as a man's two fists, but generally not exceeding the size of walnuts.

Between 9 and 10 P. M. showers of ashes began to fall, and soon afterwards a violent whirlwind ensued, which overthrew nearly every house in the village of Sangir, carrying along with it, their lighter portions and thatched roofs. In that part of the district of Sangir, adjoining the volcano, its effects were much more severe; it tore up by the roots the largest trees, and whirling them in the air, dashed them around in the wildest confusion, along with men, houses, cattle, and whatever else came within the range of its fury. The sea rose nearly twelve feet higher than it had ever been known before, and completely destroyed the only small spots of rice lands in Sangir, sweeping away houses and everything within its reach.

The captain of a ship dispatched from Macassar, to the scene of this awful phenomenon, stated, that as he approached the coast, he passed through great

quantities of pumice stone floating on the sea, which had at first the appearance of shoals, so that he was deceived into sending a boat to examine one, which at the distance of a mile, he supposed to be a dry sandbank, upwards of three miles in length, with black rocks projecting above it here and there.

Mr. Bickmore speaks of seeing the same kind of stones floating over the sea, when approaching (in April, 1865) the Strait of Sunda. He adds: Besides the quantities of this porous, foam-like lava that are thrown directly into the sea by such eruptions, great quantities remain on the declivities of the volcano and in the surrounding mountains, much of which is conveyed by the rivers, during the rainy season, to the

ocean.

(Bickmore: Travels in the Eastern Archipelago.)

VOLCANIC FIRE-BELT OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE.

Humboldt gives a list of the volcanoes of the world, calculated many years ago. It therefore may be accepted as under-estimated, as there are some 900 volcanoes, extinct and active, to be found in the Eastern Archipelago alone.

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As will be seen by the map accompanying this

work, the volcanic fire-belt very nearly surrounds and

outlines the western hemisphere. At Mount Erebus, but a few hundred miles from the South Pole, we see one of Nature's grandest outbursts-one of the world's greatest volcanoes in ceaseless eruption. With its lurid glare reflected back in a hundred ways by the icy mirrors of frozen seas, and the prismatic colorings of towering icebergs, it forms a spectacle too grand for description. Based and capped in the regions of perpetual ice and snow, its fiery peak, 13,000 feet, reaching up in the clouds, is a beacon light in an unknown, untrodden land.

THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA.

From this source we shall trace the volcanic, eruptic fire-belt. Making its way north, the great subterranean fire-stream-one branch of which passes under the South Shetland Islands, and on under the restless Atlantic; the other passes through Terra del Fuego, and across the Straits of Magellan into South America. Here the fiery current forces its resistless way under the towering peaks of the Chilean Andes, breaking out at the volcanic peaks of Acacagua, Hulliaciaca, Villarica, San Jose, Peteroa, Antuco, Hamatua, Chillan, Calbuco, Corcovado, Osomo and Zandeles. Through Bolivia, appearing in the volcanoes of Isluya, and Sajama, whose peaks tower 22,350 feet above the sea, and on into Peru, breaking out in angry flames in Arequipa, from the towering peaks of Mesta, Chacarni, Pan de Azucar, burying the cities of Arequipa and Orite, Tultapace and Ubinos, in burning lava and ashes, in the sixteenth century. And again, at Cotopaxi, 19,500 feet above the sea, boiling over and forcing its fiery way out of a height of 17,000 feet at

PARADISE A PAPUANA.--Bird of Paradise-Young male, emerald throat. From the Island of New Guineu.

BANCROFT-LITH S-F.

[graphic]

ter, grows like a vine, and is often found twined around or clinging to the trees of the great island forests. Again, there is the important difference in the two gums, that rubber requires a chemical preparation with some of the earths, or to be mixed with certain proportions of metallic oxides, to make it harder after heating and molding, before it will retain the shape desired, becoming then vulcanized rubber.

SCREW PINE (PANDANUS).

This tree, much valued in the Pacific, is native to most of the islands, where it grows in the greatest abundance. It is among the first of the plants to appear on newly formed or forming islands, and with its spreading roots, often raised above the ground and supporting the main trunk on their stems, it acts as a dam and barrier to encroaching waves, and performs an important part in collecting and retaining the drift and debris, that assists so materially in the first plant growth of islands. Its leaves, growing generally from the ends of the main branches, spreading from the trunk, grow similar to those of the pineapple, whence its name; but unlike the latter, it is a tree growing from twelve to forty feet high. The many ways that the bark, timber and the strong fiber of its leaves can be used, makes it highly prized by the natives.

RESINOUS GUM TREES.

The great forests of Borneo, Sumatra, Java, Celebes, New Guinea, etc., teem with an almost endless variety of trees that furnish the liquid resins so valuable as a base for our varnishes, while the ground itself

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