BULUSAN AND TAAL
Bulusan, a volcano on the southern extremity of the island, resembles
Vesuvius in shape. For many years it remained dormant, but in 1852 smoke
began to issue from its crater. In some respects the most interesting
of these three volcanoes is that of Taal, which lies almost due south
of Manila and about forty-five miles distant, on a small island in
the middle of a large lake, known as Bombom or Bongbong. A remarkable
feature of this volcanic mountain is that it is probably the lowest in
the world, its height being only 850 feet above sea level. There are
doubtful traditions that Lake Bombom, a hundred square miles in extent,
was formed by a terrible eruption in 1700, by which a lofty mountain
8000 or 9000 feet high, was destroyed. The vast deposits of porous
tufa in the surrounding country are certainly evidences of former great
eruptions from Mount Taal.
The crater of this volcano is an immense, cup-shaped depression, a mile
or more in diameter and about 800 feet deep. When recently visited by
Professor Worcester, during his travels in these islands, he found it to
contain three boiling lakelets of strangely-colored water, one being of
a dirty brown hue, a second intensely yellow in tint, and the third of a
brilliant emerald green. The mountain still steams and fumes, as if too
actively at work below to be at rest above. In past times it has shown
the forces at play in its depths by breaking at times into frightful
activity.
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