volcanic fish.

THE volcanoes in the kingdom of Quito, says Humboldt, present, from time to time, a different spectacle, less alarming, indeed, though not less curious to the naturalist. The grand explosions are periodical, but not very frequent.

The Cotopaxi, the Tunguragua, and the Sangay do not experience one of these eruptions in the course of twenty or thirty years; but, in the intervals, they discharge enormous quantities of argillaceous mud, and, which is more surprising, immense quantities of fish.

These volcanic inundations did not take place in the year which I passed on the Andes of Quito: but ejection of fish is so common, and so generally known to the inhabitants of the country, that there remains not the least doubt of the fact; and as these regions contain many well-informed persons, I have been able to obtain exact drawings of these fish. M. de Larrea, who is versed in the study of chemistry, and who has formed a cabinet of the minerals of his country, has been very useful to me in these researches.

In the archives of several little towns in the vicinity of Cotopaxi, I have found some notes respecting the fish thrown out by the volcanoes.

On the estates of the marquis de Selvaligree, the Cotopaxi emitted so great a quantity of them, that their putrefaction diffused a fœtid odour all around.

The almost extinct volcano of Imbaburu, in the year 1691, vomited some millions of them on the fields which surround the city of Ibarra; and the putrid fevers, which commenced at this period, were attributed to the miasmata, which exhaled from these fish, lying in heaps on the surface of the ground, and exposed to the action of the sun.

In more recent times, the Imbaburu has ejected fish; and when, on June 19, 1698, the volcano of Cargneirazo subsided, thousands of these animals, entangled in argillaceous mud, issued from the top, which was shaken down.

The Cotopaxi and Tunguragua sometimes throw out fish at the crater which is at the top of these mountains, and sometimes at the lateral openings, but constantly at a height of 5200 yards (nearly three miles) above the level of the sea.

Some Indians have assured me that the fish which issued from the volcanoes were sometimes alive when they came down the sides of the mountain: but this fact is not sufficiently confirmed: it is however certain that, among the thousands of dead fish which in the course of a few hours are seen descending from Cotopaxi with large quantities of cold and soft water, very few of them are so much disfigured as to induce the belief that they have been exposed to the action of a strong heat.

This fact becomes more striking when we consider the soft flesh of these animals, and the thick smoke which this volcano emits at the same time.

I took great pains to ascertain the species of these animals.

All the inhabitants agree that they are the same with those that are found in the streams which run at the foot of these volcanoes, and which they call Prennadillas; which is also the only kind of fish to be found at a height of 8,400 feet in the waters of the kingdom of Quito.