Another very active South American volcano is Rancagua in Chili. It is, however, of moderate height, and thus in its general character resembles Stromboli, which it rivals in restlessness. Another of the volcanoes of Chili, named Chillan, which had long been in a state of repose, renewed its activity in November 1864. Its usually snow-clad summit became covered in a short time with a thick layer of volcanic ashes, which greatly altered its appearance. Streams of lava were also thrown out by the mountain on this occasion.
There are several volcanoes in Central America. One of them, named Masaya, was very active during the sixteenth century. It is situated near the lake of Nicaragua, in the territory of that name. It was visited in 1529 by the Spanish historian Gonzales Fernando de Oviedo, from whose description it seems to have presented phenomena resembling those seen in the crater of Stromboli. "In its ordinary state," he says, "the surface of the lava, in the midst of which black scoriae are continually floating, remains several hundred feet below the edges of the water. But sometimes there is suddenly produced an ebullition so violent, that the lava rises almost to the very brim."
CHAPTER VII.
Jorullo—Great Monument—Jorullo's Estate—Interruption to his
Quiet—His Estate Swells—Swallows Two Rivers—Throws up
Ovens—Becomes a Burning Mountain—Popocatepetl—Spanish
Ascents—Orizaba —Muller's Ascent—Morne-Garou—Pelée—-La
Soufriere
What a fortunate man was Mr. Jorullo! Old Cheops, king of Egypt, spent vast sums of money, many long years, and the labour of myriads of his subjects, in erecting the Great Pyramid as a monument to his memory. But Mr. Jorullo, without his having to lay down a single Mexican dollar, and without any labour, either of his own or of his servants, had a magnificent monument raised to his memory in a single night. Jorullo's monument, too, is far bigger than the pyramid of Cheops—being nearly four times the height, and occupying a much larger extent of ground. Whether it will last as long as the pyramid has done, time only can show.
You would doubtless like to know how this great monument was reared. Here is the story:—Don Pedro di Jorullo was a Mexican gentleman who lived about the middle of the last century. He was a landed proprietor—the owner of a nice little farm of great fertility, situated to the westward of the city of Mexico, and about ninety miles from the coast of the Pacific Ocean. The ground was well watered by artificial means, and produced abundant crops of indigo and sugar-cane. Thus Mr. Jorullo was a very thriving well-to-do sort of man.
[Illustration: Jorullo]
This gentleman's prosperity continued without interruption till the month of June 1759, when, to the great alarm of his servants dwelling on the estate, strange underground rumblings were heard, accompanied by frequent shakings of the ground. These continued for nearly two months; but at the end of that time all became quiet again, and Mr. Jorullo's servants slept in fancied security. On the night of the 28th of September, however, their slumbers were suddenly broken by a return of the horrible underground rumblings—thundering more loudly than before. The next night, these subterranean thunders became so loud, that the Indian servants started from their beds, and fled in terror to the mountains in the neighbourhood. Gazing thence, after day had dawned, they beheld to their astonishment that a tract of ground from three to four square miles in extent, with their master's farm in the middle of it, had been upheaved in the shape of an inflated bladder. At the edges this singular elevation rises only about thirty-nine feet above the old level of the plain; but so great is the general convexity of the mound, that towards the centre it swells up to five hundred and twenty-four feet above the original level.
The Indians affirmed that they saw flames issue from the ground throughout an extent of more than half a square league, while fragments of burning rocks were thrown to enormous heights. Thick clouds of ashes rose into the air, illuminated by glowing fires beneath; and the surface of the ground seemed to swell into billows, like those of a tempestuous sea. Into the vast burning chasms, whence these ejections were thrown, two rivers plunged in cataracts; but the water only increased the violence of the eruption. It was thrown into steam with explosive force, and great quantities of mud and balls of basalt were ejected. On the surface of the swollen mound there were formed thousands of small cones, from six to ten feet in height, and sending forth steam to heights varying from twenty to thirty feet.
Out of a chasm in the midst of these cones, or ovens, as the natives call them, there rose six large masses, the highest of which is sixteen hundred feet in height, and constitutes the volcano of Jorullo. The eruptions of this central volcano continued till February 1760 with extreme violence—the crater throwing out large quantities of lava; but in the succeeding years it became less turbulent in its activity. It still, however, continues to burn; and the mountain emits from the wide crater at its summit several jets of vapour. The foregoing woodcut gives a view of this volcano, and of the little steaming ovens which stud the whole ground around it, giving it at a distance the appearance of the sea in a storm. And now confess that Mr. Jorullo's monument is far grander than the pyramid of Cheops. Surely the loss of his farm was amply compensated to him, by the perpetuation of his memory and his name, through the rearing of such a marvellous cenotaph.