The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-08-22


 Most Feared-Unrecorded EruptIOas
 Some Antedating Appearance of
 Man.
 Many persons surely will be sur. prised when told that there are in Mexico, scattered along the Pacific coast and in the States surrounding the Federal district, not less than one hun dred and fifty-six volcanoes already known and visited by geologists, plus many more that have not been visited and are not recorded in the charts of the Geological Institute of Mexico, says the Mexican Herald.
 The region on the Pacific coast, in fact, and the states in the vicinity of the federal district, are sprinkled with volcanoes which are marked with red dots on the charts of the Geological Institute. In some places they are grouped so closely that their names have had to be suppressed for lack of space. This great number of volcanoes Is distributed as follows:
 Lower California, 5; Sonora, g; Sino-
 
 15 Michoacan, IT; Colima. '; lHidalgo, Tlaxcala, Mexico, Federal District, Pu- ebla and Morelos, 30; Vera Cruz, 10; oaxaca, 6.
 In Chiapas there are several volca- noes, the number of which is unknown, because that region has not been thor oughly explored.
 As will be seen, the five states in the vicinity of the federal district have the largest number of volcanoes. Their ag- gregate area does not equal that of any of the larger states, such as Sonora, for Instance, and that state has only nine volcanoes.
 The volcanoes are sometimes isolated, and sometimes they form groups The main groups are situated in Topic, Aguacatan, to the north of Puebla and to the southwest of Morella.
 The main volcanoes are Popocatepetl. Orizaba, Ixtaccihuatl, Nevada of To luca, Perole, Tancitaro, Patamban, Jo- rullo, San Andres, Ceboruce, Las Vir- genes, Ajusco, TuXtla, Sanganguey, Collma and San Francisco.
 With the exception of two or three of all these volcanoes, they are all either extinct or sleeping.
 Eng, Agullara, the director of the Ge- ological Institute, says that it is diffi- cult, if not impossible, to say when a volcano is extinct or when it is sleep ing. There is, for instance, Vesuvius, in Italy, the most famous volcano in the world, the history of which has sup piled large part of the information on which geological theories of volcanic action are based. For thousands of years Vesuvius was so profoundly asleep that nobody feared such an when it destroyed Herculaneum, Pom beii and Castellamaro.
 Merry little is known of volcanic erup- < ..syISs which certainly occurred centuries before the conquest, because the Span ish friars destroyed the archives of the Indian tribes, and traditions on this matter have been lost. But judging by what can be seen at the present time, there must have occurred serious erup- tions in several places throughout the country.
 One of the volcanoes supposed to have made eruptions is old Popocate- petl, but 1t is impossible to calculate when the last one occurred. Another big eruption must have been that of Mount San Francisco, in the State of Durango, which left a deposit that in- A habitants of the state call La Brena, 8 district that highly resembles the Pe- dregal of San Angel, in the Federal dis srict.
 The Pedregal was formed by the eruption of Ajusco, probably many # hundreds of years ago, but certainly af- 8 fer the appearance of man in the Val ley of Mexico.
 H The eruption of Ajusco must have been of considerable consequence, but 1t was not so terrible as some people # believe. It is alleged, in fact that the N Currents of lava and the rocks vomited by the crater reached as far as Aca- pulco in the site of Guerrero. Such # Formidable eruptions have never oc- # cured. The streams of lava, says Eng. Aguilera, can never reach so far s from the volcano from which they is- sue, because they get cold and begin to @ form layers of rock, as was the case E iii the Pedregal.
 That the eruption of Ajusco occurred AII6r LH6 appearance OL llltiIl III tue val # ley is confirmed by the fact that pot # tery and human bones have been found # in excavations recently made. It would be easy to determine more or less when # the upheaval occurred by studying the pottery found to see to what race it be- # longs, but as yet archeologists have # paid little attention to the matter, said MT. Aguilera.
 What is generally called Ajusco is not 8 single volcano, but group of # volmanoes or craters, about twenty, the # most important of which is called Xitli. q From this crater must have flowed the # lava and rocks that formed the Pedre- # gal.
 Popecatepetl, Ceboruco, Nevada de Toluca and others, some time, probably s Thousands of years ago, bad big erup- t tions. Nothing is known to the epoch @ of such eruptions either because all # Traditions are lost or because they oc- g cured many years before man ap- # peaEed on the continent. The only volcanic eruptions recorded & are those of Colima, Jorulio and Cebo- 5 ruco. Colima has been active for many M years, Jorullo erupted in 175O, and # Ceboruco was active from 1870 until