Page:Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Vol 29.djvu/20

8 south-western slope by its angle of descent being much smaller than that of the north-eastern slope.

The sulphur on the top of the cone occurs in such quantity in the cracks and fissures, often lining them to the thickness of more than half an inch, that the question naturally arises, whether the sulphur could not be worked with advantage.

Although in the immediate neighbourhood of the crater, where the fissures are numerous, the ground seems to be completely penetrated with sulphur, this is not so evident in other parts, only a few feet lower, where the surface is unbroken. There are however some reasons which seem to promise that a search might be successful. In eruptive cones, like that of Barren Island, there is always a central tube, or passage, connecting the vent in the crater with the heat of volcanic action in the interior. In this tube the sulphur, generally in combination with hydrogen, rises in company with the watery vapour, and is partly deposited in the fissures and interstices of the earth near the vent, the remainder escaping through the apertures.

If in the present case we admit the sensible heat of the ground of the upper third of the cone to be principally due to the condensation of steam, a process of which we have abundant evidence in the stream of hot water rushing out from underneath the cold lava, it is not improbable that the whole of the upper part of the interior of the cone is intersected with spaces and fissures filled with steam and sulphurous vapour, these being sufficiently near the surface to permit the heat to penetrate. It is therefore not unlikely that at a moderate depth we should find sulphur saturating the volcanic sand that covers the outside of the cone.

I only speak of the outside, as we may conclude from the evidence we have in the rocks of lava in the crater and those bulging out on the side, that the structure of the cone is supported by solid rock nearly to its summit, the ashes covering it only superficially.

From what has been said above, the probability of sulphur being found near the surface disposed in such a way as to allow of its being profitably exhausted, will depend on the following conditions:

First.—That the communication of the central canal, through which the vapours rise, with its outlets, be effected not through a few