The bottom contains several
small fuming cones, whence arise vapors of changeable color, being
successively red, yellow and white. All round them are large deposits of
sulphur, which are worked for mercantile purposes.
Orizaba has a little less lofty snow-clad peak. This mountain was in
brisk volcanic activity from 1545 to 1560, but has since then relapsed
into a prolonged repose. It was climbed, in 1856, by Baron Muller, to
whose mind the crater appeared like the entrance to a lower world of
horrible darkness. He was struck with astonishment on contemplating the
tremendous forces required to elevate and rend such enormous masses--to
melt them, and then pile them up like towers, until by cooling they
became consolidated into their present forms. The internal walls of the
crater are in many places coated with sulphur, and at the bottom are
several small volcanic craters. At the time of his visit the summit
was wholly covered with snow, but the Indians affirmed that hot vapors
occasionally ascend from fissures in the rocks. Since then others have
reached its summit, among them Angelo Heilprin, the first to gaze into
the crater of Mont Pelee after its eruption.
ERUPTIONS IN NICARAGUA
On the 14th of November, 1867, there commenced an eruption from a
mountain about eight leagues to the eastward of the city of Leon,
in Nicaragua. This mountain does not appear to have been previously
recognized as an active volcano, but it is situated in a very volcanic
country.
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