Volume 14 Australasia - dana ward's homepage

VOLCANIC AGEXCIES. 29Ze;ilanrl, compTises the active cones of tlie Xew Hebrides, the Santa-Cniz and Solomongroups, the chain of the Philippines, and of Japan, where Milne reckons 129,of which thirty-fiTe are active, the Kurile Archipelago with sixteen, the AleutianIslands with thirty-four, of which ten are active. Through the Alaskan peninsulathe series is connected with those of the west coast of America, which are continuedsouthwards to the Bridgeman and other cones and westwards to the New ShetlandIslands. Here rises the breached crater of Deception Island with its circularhaven IS or 20 miles round and oOO feet deep, whose flanks consisting of alternateFig. 10.Volcanoes of the Pacific.Scale 1 : 200,000,000.strata of ice and ashes discharge rivulets of thermal waters. Lastly, this focus ofactivity is connected by the arc of a circle passing by the south pole with the threelofty cones of Erebus, Terror, and Melbourne, the first of which still casts a luridlight over the dreary waste of snow. Between these giants and Xew Zealand thevast circuit is completed by a succession of islands and headlands, partly at leastcomposed of lavas.Within the circuit itself occur the lines of faults, through which have beenvomited mountains of scoriae or ashes, and most of these cones run in parallel lines