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LIFE OF COLONEL MACERONI.

plainly indicates that the volcanic operations have been,from their first commencement, gradually decreasing inmagnitude. The craters of all volcanoes have, by degrees,become smaller, by the eruptions being successively confinedto ejections in the interior of the preceding craters. Theseform cones. In the midst of these cones other still smallerones are again formed, till we see, as now-a-days, the mostviolent of the eruptions of Vesuvius issuing from a conewithin the cone, which was within the cone of which MountSomma is a fraction of one side. What must have been themagnitude of the eruptions from Vesuvius when the columnof fire was ten miles in circumference ? What must it havebeen from the crater which is now called the bay ofNaples ? from those now known as the gulfs of Mexico , ofMaracaibo, the lakes of Maracaibo, of Nicaragua , of Leon,and many others, evidently at one time volcanic craters?The attempts of our world to form new islands now arereduced to utter insignificancy compared to former times,which produced all those of the eastern, south sea, Pacific,and Grecian Archipelagos; the West India and Philip-pian, Azores, Cape de Verd, Canary, Lipari, Sicily , andall other islands, save some formed by Zoophites, and themud banks of Holland. Some feeble attempts, I say, havebeen lately made at island-forming off Sicily , and near St*Vincent’s, in the West Indies ; but expansive vigour is nowwaning in our globe. The mundane skin which coversthe interior incandescent mass is growing thicker. Theearthquakes, subversions, eruptions, and catastrophies, which,even subsequently to the production of man upon our earth’ssurface, alarmed our ignorant progenitors and filled theirminds with images of titans, demons, vengeful gods, andangry goddesses have, by degrees, subsided. The pimples,boils, and irruptive symptoms of our youthful globe, have