Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/706

 686 JORTIN JOSEPH JORTIN, John, an English divine and author, born in London in 1698, died in Kensington, Sept. 5, 1770. He graduated at Cambridge in 1719, and was presented by his college with a living in Cambridgeshire ; but after his mar- riage he removed to London, where he soon became widely known as a popular and power- ful preacher. He was successively rector of Eastwell in Kent and St. Dunstan's-in-the-East, domestic chaplain to the bishop of London, prebend of St. Paul's, and in 1764 archdeacon of London. He published Lusus Poetici (1722), a small volume of Latin poems, which were greatly admired, and numerous critical and theological works, which display a vast amount of unusual learning. The most important are : " Remarks upon Authors, Ancient and Modern " (2 vols., 1731-'2) ; " Remarks on Ecclesiastical History" (5 vols., 1751-'73); and "Life of Erasmus " (2 vols., 1758-'60). He also wrote criticisms on Spenser, Milton, Tillotson, and Seneca. See " Memoirs of John Jortin, D. D.," by John Disney, D. D. (London, 1792). JOKULLO, a volcano of Mexico, in the state of Michoacan, 160 m. W. by S. of the city of Mexico. It rises from the plain of Mai- pais, which forms a part of a platform having a mean elevation of 2,500 ft. above the sea, and is on a line with a chain of volcanoes including Tuxtla, Orizaba, and Popocatapetl to the east, and Colima to the west. From the discovery of America down to the middle of the 18th century no volcanic disturbance had occurred in this region ; and the present site of Jorullo, about 100 m. from the nearest sea, was the centre of a series of sugar and indigo fields, drained by two small streams, Jorullo. the Cuitimba and the San Pedro. In June, 1759, strange hollow sounds were audible, and earthquakes succeeded each other until the end of September, when flames issued from the ground, and rocks were thrown to a prodigious height. On the line of a chasm running from N. N. E. to S. S. W. were formed six volcanic cones composed of scoriaj and frag- mentary lava, the smallest of which attained 300 ft. in height, while Jorullo, the central volcano, rose to an elevation of 1,600 ft. above the level of the plain, and launched forth streams of basaltic lava with included frag- ments of granitic rocks, which ejection did not cease until February, 1760. The natives, on returning to the spot many years after the out- burst, found the ground still uninhabitable from the excessive heat. Around the base of the newly formed cones, and radiating from them as from a centre, over an area of 4 sq. m., is a convex mass of matter some 550 ft. high at its junction with the cones, and gradu- ally sloping thence in all directions toward the plain ; and on this convex protuberance, slo- ping at an angle of about 6, are thousands of low conical mounds, called hornitos, ranging from 6 to 9 ft. in height, from which, as well as from extensive fissures across the plain, is- sued clouds of sulphurous acid and aqueous vapor. In 1827 they had entirely ceased to emit steam, and the mountain has not since shown any signs of activity; vegetation had made marked progress on the flanks of the new hills ; and cultivation had been resumed on the fertile plain surrounding the volcanic centre. The great distance of Jorullo from the ocean is observed by Lyell as an important circumstance, showing that proximity to the sea, though a common characteristic, is not an essential condition of the site of active volca- noes. The two streams above mentioned dis- appeared at the time of the eruption below the eastern extremity of the plain, and afterward reappeared as hot springs at its western limit. JOSEPH, son of Jacob and Rachel, having a younger brother Benjamin and ten elder half brothers. He was envied by his brethren on account of his father's partiality toward him ; and their aversion was increased by two dreams that he told, in which was foreshadowed his preeminence in the family. Conspiring against him, they sold him for a slave to a caravan of Arabian merchants, and he was taken to Egypt. There he rose to the highest power in the house of Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh. The wife of Potiphar, stung by his rejection of her licen- tious advances, caused his imprisonment on a false charge ; but his successful interpreta- tion of the king's dreams soon raised him to supreme authority at the court. One of the dreams foretold a famine, against which he made ample provision ; and such was his dis- tinction that he married the daughter of the high priest of On or Heliopolis. While the famine prevailed, his brethren came from Ca- naan to Egypt to purchase corn. He at once recognized them, and after a period of delay in which he became convinced that they had la- mented their former cruelty to him and re- pented of it, ho made himself known to them, and appropriated to Jacob and his family the land of Goshen. The Egyptian people were