No small part of the non-traveling public has similar misconceptions of the character of volcanoes; and to obtain the truth it is not so necessary to learn as to unlearn. The description quoted from the old text-book is false in every particular. The mountain can not be said to be burning any more than melted lead. Nor does anything that answers to either smoke or flame issue from it. Be it known to all, that the greatest portion of the surface of an active crater is usually covered with a solid crust, in which there may be a small fiery lake, or inner secondary cone or crater. Into many craters it is possible therefore to descend: and into one volcano of the Mediterranean Sea an enterprising Scotch firm have long had quite remunerative chemical works.
The name is taken from one of the Lipari Islands—a small group near Sicily—which was known to the ancients as Vulcano. When the Romans imported the Grecian god, Hephaistos, to be their chief blacksmith, they assigned him Vulcano as his forge, and rechristened the lame old fellow with the adjective appellation of Vulcanus.
Men much prefer the marvellous or mysterious to the true. And, while their reverence is of a merely superstitious sort, the reverence of the ignorant often surpasses that of the learned. A superstitious people readily manufactured a myth to explain the awe-inspiring demonstrations of volcanoes; and the myth itself, because of its religious character, would discourage any attempt to closely investigate volcanic phenomena as sacrilege and impiety. There are similar volcano myths in the island and Asiatic world. So firm was the belief of the Sandwich Islanders in the certainty of dire vengeance upon all who trespassed on the domain of Pele, the goddess of Kilauea, that when a princess of the blood royal safely defied the goddess, ate her sacred berries, and threw rocks into her boiling lake, the people at once abandoned their whole race of gods. If there was no Pele, they knew of no god. Such reasons prevented the ancients and the barbarian world from obtaining any light on volcanic action.
Similar causes operated with equal force to hinder investigation during the middle and dark ages. Christian teachers seized upon them as convenient openings to the abode of eternal torment. The Arian heretic, the Emperor Theodosius, was assigned to Vulcano; while poor Anne Boleyn, for whose sake the “Defender of the Faith” defied the Pope, was sent by the latter to Mt. Ætna, as the shortest route to her destination.
Similar ideas are noticed among semi-barbarous races. The Aztecs deemed Popocatepetl, the greatest of their volcanoes, to be the place of punishment for wicked rulers. These gentry were supposed to cherish no good will toward their subjects, whose complaints had brought them to that place of torment, and to be always seeking opportunity for vengeance. The people held them in great awe, and were wont to invoke the aid of the gods when it became necessary to travel near the volcanoes. It is related that the high priest, Tezozomoc, was wont to give aloe-leaves inscribed with sacred characters, to such persons. These leaves were amulets to preserve the wearer from harm. Southey uses this story in Madoc:
“So ye may safely pass
Between the mountains, which in endless war,
Hurtle with horrible uproar, and frush
Of rocks, that meet in battle.”
This mountain was in eruption when Cortes reached Tlascala on his march to Mexico. It was believed to bode evil to the people of Anahuac. Learning the native superstition, Diego de Ordaz, captain of artillery, determined to beard the demons in their den, and with some companions ascended the mountain. Their safe return convinced the natives that the Spaniards were in league with the spirits, and did much to dishearten them. In memory of this feat, the Ordaz family has a volcano pictured on its coat of arms.
The Javanese call their greatest volcano Maha-Meru. Meru, in the Sanscrit mythology, was the home of Brahma, and the Malays, having adopted the legend, consider their greatest volcano the fittest symbol of his throne and power.
