The Volcanoes of Central France

Abstract

THE Auvergne volcanoes threaten to be as periodic a subject of controversy as the authorship of the letters of Junius. It is only seven years since the last eruption of letters. At that time I contributed apaper to the Geological Magazine (vol. ii. p. 241), in which I collected, printed, and translated all that I could find on the subject, and came to the conclusion that it was very probable there had been some local outbreak of volcanic action. Thus I agree with Mr. Garbett, but it appears to me that he has not made his case in one respect so strong as it might be. In the passage “nunc ignes sæpe flammati caducas culminum cristas superjecto favillarum monte tumulabant” (as the edition which I follow has it) he translates culmina “roofs,” and again in the parallel passage of Avitus. I think it more likely to mean summits (of mountains), and to refer to the formation of one or more new cones in the hill country.