'Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from September 1850 to June 1852. Edited by the Secretary. Volume X.' [‎158] (291/458)

158
VOLCANOES OP INDIA.
is nearly circular, affording a circuit of five miles. Of this half a
mile has been blown out right down to the level of the sea. The
bottom of the crater on which stands the town of Aden and the
British Cantonments, is covered with a bed of rolled gravel and
sea shells, proving that there has been no trace of eruption since the
last general upheaval, which produced the sea beach all along these
shores, but which is si ill believed to have been within the human, per
haps even the historic, period.* The Slmm-Shum range, which forms
about half the wall of the crater, reaches an altitude of above 1760
feet. There is a huge crack or slip which cuts above a third
off the eastern side of the volcano, and through a portion of this,
Constituting a narrow gorge or pass, ten feet wide, and twenty
or thirty high, the road from Steamer Point enters the crater,
and leads to the cartonnients. Dr. J. P. Malcolmson supposes this
to have been the remains of the latest great eruption of which the
effects are chiefly manifest on the ta^le land on the eastern iut-
tress of W hum-Shum : by this the ancient crater was shattered nearly
through its centre from the northern to the southern pass, breaking
into pieces, and separating the whole of the eastern side of the edge
of which Seera Island is a fragment,—and in these views I concur.
(Loud. As. Trans. 1846.) On the one side of this which remains
the wall of the crater subsides from 1700 to 600 feet, and then brenks
away altogether. The rift probably occurred when the side of the
crater was blown out and demolished. The walls of the crater as now
existing, when seen from the cantonments, present the most magnificent
cuit, ascends some 1776 feet from the plain. It is in most places per
pendicular. The cliff is of a rusty dark brown colour, and full of caverns
and recesses, carved almost like the alter screen of a Gotbic cathedral.
Great streams of lava may be observed from point to point, as if the
fiery cataract had been arrested in its progross, and congealed as it
flowed from the lesser rents of the principal crater. On many parts
of the rock, 500 feet a ove the level of the sea,—to tbe level of
Shutn Shunt) so far as I know, but the altitude just named is all to
which I have examined,—great masses of volcanic ashes are strewed
* See Report of the Society of Civil Engineer’s May -.0, 1861, copied i" 1 **!*
July 9. Also Miss Fauny Corbeaux’s letters* Mhen&um June 2d, and Juiy »
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