The American Cyclopaedia Volume 12; A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1879 Excerpt: ...Santa Clara, Telica (4,190), Orota (2,665), Las Pilas (3,985), Asososca, Momotombo (7,200), Momotombita, Chiltepeque (2,800), Masaya (2,972), Mombacho (4,588), Zapotera (2,000), Ometepe (5,350), and Madera (4,190). Of these, Coseguina is remarkable for its famous eruption in 1835, when it scattered ashes over a circle 1,500 m. in diameter. Santa Clara and Telica were in eruption at the time of the conquest. A few of these peaks are still active, but most of them have long been extinct. There are many smaller extinct craters in the chain, surrounded by vast beds of lava and scoriae, and numerous vents called infiernilloi, which emit smoke and sulphurons vapors. Nearly parallel to this range is a second mountain chain, the backbone of the continent and the true Cordillera, which enters from Honduras into the department of Segovia, and extends S. E. to the San Juan river about 50 m. above its mouth. There are several volcanic peaks in this range. It sends out numerous spurs toward the Atlantic, between which are the valleys of the streams flowing into the Caribbean sea. The principal of these subordinate ranges are the cordillera of Dipilto, which forms a part of the boundary line of Honduras, the Yali and Yeluca mountains between the departments of Segovia and Matagalpa, the Huapi range in Chontales, and the cordillera of Yolaina, which ends' at Monkey point on the Mosquito coast. Between these two principal ranges of mountains lies a great interior basin, the plain of Nicaragua, about 300 m. long by 100 m. wide, containing the beautiful lakes of Nicaragua and Managua. (See Managua, and Nioabagua, Lake.) Nicaragua is thus divided into three zones: the most easterly one, between the main mountain range and the Atlantic, a country of almost unbroken forest; the...