ep
of Coronada Bay and several small harbours. The Gulf of Nicoya, a
shallow landlocked inlet, containing a whole archipelago of
richly-wooded islets, derives its name from Nicoya, an Indian chief who,
with his tribe, was here converted to Christianity in the 16th century.
It is famous for its purple-yielding murex, pearls and mother-of-pearl.
The Golfo Dulce has an average depth of 100 fathoms and contains no
islands. Two volcanic _Cordilleras_ or mountain chains, separated from
one another by the central plateau of San Jose and Cartago, traverse the
interior of Costa Rica, and form a single watershed, often precipitous
on its Pacific slope, but descending more gradually towards the
Atlantic, where there is a broad expanse of plain in the north-east. The
more northerly range, in which volcanic disturbances on a great scale
have been comparatively recent, extends transversely across the country,
from a point a little south of Salinas Bay, to the headland of Carreta,
the southern extremity of the Atlantic seaboard, also known as Monkey
Point. Its direction changes from south-east to east-south-east opposite
to the entrance into the Gulf of Nicoya, where it is cut into two
sections by a depression some 20 m. wide. At first it is rather a
succession of isolated volcanic cones than a continuous ridge, the most
conspicuous peaks being Orosi (5185 ft.), the four-crested Rincon de la
Vieja (4500), Miravalles (4698) and Tenorio (6800). In this region it is
known as the Sierra de Tilaran. Then succeed the Cerros de los Guatusos,
a highland stretching for more than 50 m. without a single volcano. Poas
(8895), the scene of a violent eruption in 1834, begins a fresh series
of igneous peaks, some with flooded craters, some with a constant escape
of smoke and vapour. From Irazu (11,200), the culminating point of the
range, both oceans and the whole of Costa Rica are visible; its altitude
exceeds that of Aneto, the highest point in the Pyrenees, but so gradual
is its acclivity that the summit can easily be reached by a man on
horseback. Turialba (10,910), adjoining Irazu on the east, was in
eruption in 1866. Its name, though probably of Indian origin, is
sometimes written Turrialba, and connected with the Latin _Turris Alba_,
"White Tower." The more southerly of the two Costa Rican ranges, known
as the Cordillera de Talamanca, rises south of the Gulf of Nicoya, and
extends midway between the two oceans towards the south-east. It follows