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for one year.

THE

Boston Journal

OF

PHILOSOPHY AND THE ARTS.

ART. LIV.-Analysis of the Water of the Rio Vinagre, in the Andes of Popayan. By M. MARIANO DE RIVERO. With Geognostic and Physical Illustrations of some Phenomena which are exhibited by Sulphur, Sulphuretted Hydrogen, in Water, in Volcanos. By M. A. DE HUMBOLDT. [Phil. Mag.] (Concluded from p. 466.)

THE good curate of the village of Puracé thought to render a great service to his parishioners, as well as to the inhabitants of the town of Popayan, in causing, as he said, the chimneys of the volcano to be cleaned now and then. He ordered the Indians to take away the crust of sulphur which rises in form of a dome above the crevice. This crust has acquired sometimes, as they affirm, a thickness of as much as four feet in less than two years. It lessens without doubt the opening by which the vapours of sulphurous acid escape; but it may be conceived that the elastic force of these vapours is such, that, if the opening were entirely stopped up for some moments, it would sooner break the new arch than produce commotions by acting against the rocky sides of the volcano. For several years the lakes, which represent in miniature the crater-lakes of our extinguished volcanos, seem each to preserve the same level of their line of water; which proves that the evaporation is equal to the infiltration of the waters of snow and rain but this equilibrium has not always been equally steady. About the year 1790 the Boca grande caused partial inundations. I dwell on this phenomenon, because