Penny Blood: Serial Sensation and Working-Class Entertainment — page 276: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CHAPTER XXI. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF VOLCANOS. The Linear arrangement of Volcanos accords with the doctrine of a thin crust and fluid substratum—Voleanic bands related to the boundaries of continents— Distinction between coastline and oceanic volcanos—Darwin on coral islands— Platforms on which oceanic islands stand—their possible origin—Great vol- canic band of the Pacific coast—Sinking and rising areas adjoining it— Et follows nearly a great circle of the sphere—and divides the land from the water-hemisphere—Is not equally active at every part—Suggested cause of local activity—Other possible causes of the same—Unknown cosmical causes have operated—Conclusion. THE Geographical distribution of volcanos presents perhaps fewer difficulties upon the supposition of a thin crust and a fluid substratum, than upon any other that can be made, regarding the constitution of the outer parts of the globe. The linear arrangement of the greater number of the vents, points to their situation along systems of fissures, and represents on a grand scale the same phenomenon, which occurs, when subsidiary cones of eruption are established upon fissures radiating from a central volcano. To explain why these fissures, extending for thou- sands of miles, should range in certain directions rather than in others, is probably a hopeless task. The causes which contribute to determine the direction of any fissure are very complicated, and in the case before us generally unknown ; and the positions of those which underlie the at present active vents, are not the same as of those which did so in more ancient times. The post- 1v—2 GONG oOo (CO)