Francisco, between those two last places); and when we come down to
Mexico we find the red dots again plentiful, and only too plentiful; for
they mark the great volcanic line of Mexico, of which you will read, I
hope, some day, in Humboldt's works. But the line does not stop there.
After the little gap of the Isthmus of Panama, it begins again in Quito,
the very country which has just been shaken, and in which stand the huge
volcanos Chimborazo, Pasto, Antisana, Cotopaxi, Pichincha,
Tunguragua,--smooth cones from 15,000 to 20,000 feet high, shining white
with snow, till the heat inside melts it off, and leaves the cinders of
which the peaks are made all black and ugly among the clouds, ready to
burst in smoke and fire. South of them again, there is a long gap, and
then another line of red dots--Arequiba, Chipicani, Gualatieri,
Atacama,--as high as, or higher than those in Quito; and this, remember,
is the other country which has just been shaken. On the sea-shore below
those volcanos stood the hapless city of Arica, whose ruins we saw in the
picture. Then comes another gap; and then a line of more volcanos in
Chili, at the foot of which happened that fearful earthquake of 1835
(besides many more) of which you will read some day in that noble book
_The Voyage of the Beagle_; and so the line of dots runs down to the
southernmost point of America.

What a line we have traced! Long enough to go round the world if it were
straight. A line of holes out of which steam, and heat, and cinders, and
melted stones are rushing up, perpetually, in one place and another. Now
the holes in this line which are near each other have certainly something
to do with each other. For instance, when the earth shook the other day
round the volcanos of Quito, it shook also round the volcanos of Peru,
though they were 600 miles away. And there are many stories of
earthquakes being felt, or awful underground thunder heard, while
volcanos were breaking out hundreds of miles away. I will give you a