Is Mount Unzen a Volcano?

Abstract

IN a recent visit to the Simabara Peninsula, about twenty miles east of Nagasaki as the crow flies, an opportunity was afforded me of ascending “Unzen”, a mountain which rises about 4,700 feet above the sea (by aneroid). If tradition is to be believed “Unzen” is an active volcano, the subterranean fires of which have been slumbering since the close of last century, when a disastrous earthquake, accompanied by a volcanic eruption, destroyed 53,000 of the inhabitants of the district. But I failed to find any trace of a recent volcano, which, wherever it may be, is certainly not situated in the higher peaks of the mountain, where popular belief has located it. From the sea level up to the highest summit a porphyry is the ever-prevailing rock, which varies somewhat in different parts of the peninsula. True it is that from many points of view Unzen has somewhat the form of a truncated cone, but there the resemblance ends.