Captain Fitzroy’s Journal:
In the night, or rather from two to three the following morning, Osorno was observed in eruption, throwing up brilliant jets of flame or ignited matter, high into the darkness, while lava flowed down its steep sides in torrents, which from our distance (seventy-three miles) looked merely like red lines. Daybreak diminished the effect, and as the light increased only a dark column of smoke could be discerned. This mountain is one of the most striking in form which I ever saw. It is not only quite conical from the base to the summit, but it is so sharply pointed that its appearance is very artificial. When seen from the sea, at a distance of ninety or a hundred miles, the whole of the cone, 6,000 feet in height* at least, and covered with snow, stands out in the boldest relief from among ranges of inferior mountains. The apex of this cone being very acute, and the cone itself regularly formed, it bears a resemblance to a gigantic glass-house; which similitude is increased not a little by the column of smoke so frequently seen ascending.
In the night, or rather from two to three the following morning, Osorno was observed in eruption, throwing up brilliant jets of flame or ignited matter, high into the darkness, while lava flowed down its steep sides in torrents, which from our distance (seventy-three miles) looked merely like red lines. Daybreak diminished the effect, and as the light increased only a dark column of smoke could be discerned. This mountain is one of the most striking in form which I ever saw. It is not only quite conical from the base to the summit, but it is so sharply pointed that its appearance is very artificial. When seen from the sea, at a distance of ninety or a hundred miles, the whole of the cone, 6,000 feet in height* at least, and covered with snow, stands out in the boldest relief from among ranges of inferior mountains. The apex of this cone being very acute, and the cone itself regularly formed, it bears a resemblance to a gigantic glass-house; which similitude is increased not a little by the column of smoke so frequently seen ascending.
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