Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-07-31


ton of indigo and cottonwas not then car
| ried on, as now, to great extent. In all
! the series of earthquakes, and even in the
eliminating throe which brought forth the
mountain, no human lives were lost,
though innumerable horses and cattle were
killed, and houses were overturned as far
awav as Patrenaro. 1t is stated that dur
| ing the general nocturnal flight from
.Jorullo the people forgot to remove deaf
and dumb negro slave Amulatto had the
humanity to return to his rescue, and his
was the only house found to be standing,
and rs the negro was kneeling, with con-
secrated candle in his hand, before an
image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, his de-
| Iiyerance is ascribed solely to his miracu-
lous powers.
According to native traditions, during
the first DAYS of the eruption the great
masses of rock, scoria, sand and ashes were
ALWAYS combined with streams of muddy
| water. All the eye witnesses affirm that
before the terrible BLACK castle" made its
appearance the flat soilseemed TO rise per-
pendicularly, and then the whole surface
| dubbed up in spots, so that rerigones
IL blisters" appeared all over the valley.
THESE INFLATED BIIsTERs,"
| OF various sizes and mostly of a regular
conical form, subsequently burst and threw
boiling hot mud from their oriices, as
| well as scoriaecious stony masses, which
may still be found at great distances.
i Humboldt writes: The roundish, con-
vex part of the upheayed plain is about
1890 feet in diameter, so that its area Is
! more than seven square miles. The true
volcano Of Jorullo, and five other volcanoes
that rose simultaneously with it on the
same assure, are 50 situated that only a
| small portion of the malpdis lies east of
them Toward the west, the numbers OF
horniots-' little ovens the small eruptiye
| cones or blisters above-mentioned-are
much larger; and when, in the early
morning, issued from the Indian huts of
La Playa and assembled the basaltic hill of
Mirados, l saw the black volcano project
ing most picturesquely above white col
umns of smoke from the little ovens
< The many thousand hornaos,
which cover the upheaved suffice unit
formly, are on an average Of four to nine
feet high Each Of them is composed
Of basatc spheres, with fragments
separated like concentric shells. The
balls are hattened into somewhat spher-
oidal form, and are usually from fifteen to
eighteen inches in diameter. The
basaltic mass is penetrated by hot
yapors and broken up into an
earthly form, although the nucleus
is of greater density, while the shells,
when detached, exhibit yellow oxide of
iron Even the soft, loamy mass which
unites the balls is siugularly enough, di-
vided into curved ldiniiG, which wind
through all the interstices of the balls.
+ The appellation of ovens is
especially justified 10y the circumstance
that in each of them the columns of smoke
break out, not from the summit, but later
ally. In the year 1850
CIGARS MIGHT BE LIGHTED
Bv fastening them to a stick and thrusting
them in to a depth of two inches. In many
places the air was still so heated in the
vicinity of the kornitos that it was neces-
sary to turn away from ones proposed
course: and in the interiors of most of
them we heard rushing noise like that of
the fall of waters. When Burhart visited
the place twenty-six years later he found
that none Of the ovens were then smoking,
their temperature, in most cases, being
nearly that of the surrounding atmosphere,
while many of them had lost all regular
ity of form by heavy rains and meteoric
! influences"
The main volcano of JorullO Is pear
shaped, and the outlet of Its crater is on
the north side. The cone is covered with
loose black ashes, in which a few stunted
bushes are growing, and its average slope
| is 45 degrees The traveller can easily
make the circuit of the crater, which Is
only about mile in circumference,
| its diameter from north 10 south
being 500 yards-and he may even de-
scend 500 feet to the bottom Of the mouth
of the volcano. Numbers of clefts and
tumdroles are found in the edge Of the era
ter, in which the mean temperature of es-
Gaping gas and sulphurous acid gas is 1929
Fair. The border is fringed with the
tallest grass | ever saw in Mexico, a few
coarse ferns, and the native trees, called
tlsisacl,i, tepeiuqie and chGaguuo 1t is said
| that deer are abundant in these strange
solitudes, and that occasionally puma, or
mountain lion, is seen; but we found no
traces of animal life, not even bird or
| vagrant coyote The rocks of Jorullo are
not uniform in texture or composition, va
ryiug in color from black and red to gray
and white. Blush basalt, containing oil
vine, occurs near the bottom of the crater,
while whitish-gray trachyte forms the
greater part of 1.-THE latter rock tray
ersed with few small veins of sulphur.
The inner walls slant rapidly, and are COW
cred with masses of tGius, containing sharp
fragments of red and black rocks. On the
north side of the mountain
AN IMMENSE STREAM OF LAVA,
OF a dark red color, owing TO the oxida
ton of the iron in the rock, and looking
like the Stag of,a furnace. Although no
eruption has occurred here for more than
a hundred years, the volcano is still in a
semi-active state, as is shown by the heat
of the crater walls, the emissions of sui
phurous gas and the frequency of earth
quakes, all indicating that another stream
| of lava may flow from Jorullo at any
time. In March of 1888 an earthquake
| was perceptible at Ario, and cracks were
found in the ground ten miles distant.
Shocks are often felt as far away as
Morelia-sixty miles-and everybody has
heard of the recent grand eruption Of
| Colima's volcano, 40 miles to the south
ward. The view from the summit of the
burning mountain is magnihcent-if the
| traveller is not too nervous to enjoy it.
Westward, the Sierra Madres stretch away
as far as the eye can reach, the colos-
sal snow-capped volcano OF Colima bound
ing the horizon. On the other side, that
picturesque mountain called "The Mansion
Of the Fathers" is conspicuous, with the
grassy plains-forty five miles wide spread
out before it. Looking northward, one sees
the sugar-cane fields and banana groves of
Teiamanil, whose bright verdure looks
brighter contrasted with the greater part
OK the desert landscape.
Not far away is the famous palm-tree
hacienda of Jorullo-the largest of lis kind
in Mexico-which yields an income of not
less than $4,000 per annum. The chief
industry of the natives hereabouts consists
in collecting the palm leaves, cutting them
into shreds and taking the thin fibers for
brooms, brushes, etc. The long strips of
palm are folded over and packed with cords
into enormous bundles, which are carried
to Ario on the backs of men and donkeys
FANNIE b. WARD.
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