This entire region is one of wonderful activity. Mount Api, in the island of Banda, in the same group, has had twelve violent eruptions in two hundred and thirty-four years; and, indeed, it is hardly ever really quiet. The volcano of Abo, in the island of Sanguir, broke out in 1711, burying a large number of villages in cinders, covering extensive areas of forest and plain, and destroying many thousands of people. This same volcano burst forth suddenly in March, 1856, vomiting torrents of mud, streams of lava, and clouds of ashes and scoria, doing almost as much mischief as on the former occasion. In the island of Timor, a gigantic volcano, long known as the Peak, began a violent eruption in 1638. When the convulsion was over the mountain had disappeared; partly blown away, partly sunken, and the site is to this day covered by a great lake. But the center of this great volcanic region lies in the island of Java, which possesses about fifty craters, half of them still active. The heat and vapors poured out, combined with the power of the sun, combine to make this one of the most noted tempest regions in the world. Nowhere else are such terrific thunder-storms so common; and more than twenty water spouts are sometimes seen at one time. One of the most remarkable eruptions of modern times is that of Papandayang, in this island, which occurred in 1772. The mountain burst forth suddenly, with a tremendous roaring. Cinders and ashes were almost insignificant. Immense boulders were hurled about the neighboring regions. The mountain was veiled in a cloud of glowing vapor. A tract of land seventeen miles long and seven miles wide, with over forty villages, was swallowed up. Several thousand people perished. When the cloud finally vanished it was found that four thousand feet of the upper portion of the mountain had been blown away. The broad, ragged mass remaining was of little more than one-half the original height. Two other mountains in the island were in action at the same time; while several intervening active cones remained quiet. Mt. Guntur, in the same island, has had a number of violent eruptions. The last, occurring in 1800, sent forth in addition to lava streams, a torrent of white, acid, sulphurous mud, which swept a populous and fertile valley, engulfing hundreds of men and animals in its course. We shall notice by and by a still more remarkable Javanese convulsion. Time would fail were details to be given of the numerous volcanoes of Sumatra and Celebes and the adjacent islands, or of the eruptions and boiling springs of New Zealand, or the towering cones of New Guinea, or of the peaks of the Canary, Cape Verde and Azores. Let us notice briefly a few of the more noted volcanoes of America.