VOLCANOES AND EARTHQUAKES. MY DEAR YOUNG READER OF THE "JUVENILE MAGAZINE," Inside this earth, some miles below the soil on which you stand, the fiercest fires burn night and day. These have found channels to the surface of our world, and those places where the fires blaze out are called volcanoes. Literally, mountains of Vulcan, the fabled god of fire, and the patron of all artists who forged and worked metals. Some most silly tales are told about this god in the writings of ancient Greece and Rome. According to Homer, the workshop of Vulcan was fixed in Olympus, to which he had a second time returned, and where he inhabited a palace built by himself; but, according to Virgil and others, the workshop of the god was under Ætna, in the island of Sicily, and in every part of the earth where were volcanoes. The worship of Vulcan was widely established, particularly in Egypt, at Athens, and at Rome; and calves and boars were the principal victims sacrificed to him. He is represented bearded and covered with sweat, blowing with his nervous arms the fires of his forges; his breast heaving, and his forehead blackened with smoke. Sometimes he holds in one hand a hammer raised in the air, ready to strike, while in the other he is turning a thunderbolt on his anvil with a pair of pincers. We have correct notions of the great forces generated in burning mountains. The ancients had not, and therefore when they saw the vast currents of lava streaming from the craters of their volcanoes, and the huge stones, some of them many tons in weight, hurled many hundreds of yards high as easily as a boy could twirl his ball in the air, no marvel they represented their god Vulcan as the type of strength and power. Vast mechanical forces are at work down there where Virgil thought Vulcan's workshop was, which, were it not for the vents these expansive gases find in the tops of the burning mountains, would shiver the crust of the earth into fragments. These volcanoes are the great safety-valves communicating with the underground ducts along which the fearful fires run and blaze. Vesuvius, in Italy, has been burning eighteen hundred years, and Ætna for above two thousand three hundred years. While many volcanoes have burnt themselves out, and are now quiescent, Vesuvius is as fresh and active as ever. Reports reach us stating that this old volcano has been very lively of late, giving no signs of exhaustion whatever. Earthquakes generally prevail just before volcanic eruptions, and some of these fearful visitations have extended a long way. We have lately heard of the dreadful earthquake in South America, and shocks have been felt in England and on the continent of Europe, and, as we have just stated, Vesuvius has been unusually active, belching out its lava, devastating woods and fields and invading the habitations of men. Earthquakes alter the appearance of the land or surface. In some places they produce vast fissures or openings. In 1811 and 1812 great depressions and elevations took place in the Valley of the Mississippi. Some of these remain to this day, and have permanently affected the drainage and changed the form of the surface. In 1669 the flanks of Etna were fissured, and the Monte Rossi was raised, by ejections of ashes, etc., to the height of 450 feet. In 1759 the volcano of Jorullo was formed near Mexico, first by the swelling up of the ground, and then by the accumulation of ejected materials into a mountain 1,695 feet high. We are surprised at the large mass of matter which some volcanoes give out. In forty-eight hours, in 1538, the Monte Nuovo, 440 feet high and 8,000 feet in circumference, was thrown up. Between July and August, in 1831, the island of Sciacca had been raised from the sea-bed, 100 fathoms deep, to a height of 107 feet above the sea, with a circumference of 3,240 feet; in September its height was 100 to 230 feet, and its circumference 2,300. In the winter of 1831-2 the whole vast heap of ashes had been dispersed by the waves, and nothing now remains of this island but a vast shoal. In 1737 Vesuvius poured forth 33,587,058 cubic feet; in 1794, 46,098,766 cubic feet; and Ætna, in 1669, gave forth 93,838,950 cubic feet. Skaptaa Jokul, in Iceland, in two years' eruptions filled valleys and lakes and broad plains with floods of melted rock. The lava is said to have flowed in one direction fifty and in another forty miles, with breadths of fifteen and seven miles respectively, and with a depth averaging 100 feet, but in places reaching 600 feet. These explosions have a fearful potency. It has been known that a rock of 200 tons in weight has been thrown up from these depths and carried nine miles from the point of ejection. Doubtless these convulsions and agitations point to the final desolations of this earth. According to the testimony of Professor R. D. Hitchcock, in the July number of the Bibliotheca Sacra, philosophers have little cause to sneer at Peter's prophecy that "the heavens and earth shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burned up." In an article on The Relations of Geology to Theology," the professor says: "The earth contains within itself the agencies necessary to its desolation by fire. Its crust is supposed to be several miles thick, while the interior is in a state of fusion like lava. The three hundred active volcanoes on the crust are the breathing holes of the internal fire. At present counteracting agencies prevent this lava from bursting forth. But let the order be issued for its liberation, and these vents will belch forth fire and desolation. The works of man, in which we take so much pride, may be crumbled in a moment by the concussion of the crust. Liberated gases may combine explosively with the oxygen in the air, so that the heavens shall pass away with a great noise." He mentions in confirmation of the |