TERRIBLE WORK OF VOLCANOES.
FEW people in this country imagine what terrible work a volcano of the regulation size can do when it once gets fully aroused. In 1838 Cotopaxi threw its fiery rockets more than 3,000 feet above the crater, and in 1797, when the blazing mass confined in the same mountain was struggling for an outlet, it roared so loud that the awful noise was heard for a distance of 600 miles. In 1797 the crater of Tunguragua, one of the great peaks of the Andes, threw out torrents of mud and lava, which dammed up the great river, opened up new lakes, besides making a deposit of seething mud, ashes, and lava 600 feet deep over the whole area of a valley which was 20 miles long and averaged 1,000 feet in width. The stream of lava which flowed from Vesuvius in 1837 and passed through the Valley of Terra del Greco is estimated to have contained 333,000,000 cubic feet of solid matter. In 1760 Etna poured out a flood of melted stones and ashes which covered 84 square miles of fertile country to a depth of from 10 to 40 feet. On this occasion the sand, scoria, lava, etc., from the burning mountain formed Mount Rosina, a peak 2 miles in circumference and over 4,000 feet high. In the eruption of Vesuvius in the year 79 A.D., the time of the destruction of Pompeii, the scoria, ashes, sand, and lava vomited forth far exceeded the dimensions of the volcano itself, while in 1660 Etna disgorged over twenty times its own mass. Vesuvius has sent its ashes into Syria, Egypt, and Turkey. It hurled stones of 800 pounds weight to Pompeii, a distance of 6 English miles, during the eruption of 79 A.D. Cotopaxi once projected a block of stone containing over 100 cubic yards a distance of 9 1/2 miles. —Philadelphia Press.