Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/56

 hours it was already 20 feet high, with a round crater 1,500 feet in circumference. Sixteen days after the beginning of the eruption the cone acquired its greatest dimensions — 250 feet high and 14 mile round; but consisting entirely of loose ashes and scoriæ, it could not long resist the action of the waves, and gradually disappeared to a depth of about 100 feet below the surface.

The earliest Portuguese settlement on the south coast of San-Miguel takes the simple name of ''Povoacam. Villafranca'', which succeeded it as the capital, lies also on the south side, where the roadstead is sheltered from the west winds by the volcanic islet and the flooded isthmus connecting it with the shore. Although

destroyed by an eruption in 1522, when all its five thousand inhabitants perished, Villafranca has again become a populous place, carrying on a direct trade with England. But the capital has been removed farther west to Ponta-Delgada, which ranks for population as the fourth city in Portuguese territory. The formerly exposed anchorage is already partly protected by a pier 2,850 feet long, which was begun in 1860, and which, when completed, will shelter from all winds a harbour large enough to accommodate a hundred vessels. More than half of the foreign trade of the Azores is carried on through this port, which is connected by good roads with the northern slope of the island. Here are situated Rubeira-Grande,