Caroline Balwierczak, age 11, of Staten Island, New York, for her question:

What exactly are the Azores?

Suppose Staten Island was removed to the Mid Atlantic and scattered around with eight other larger and. smaller islands. More than 500 years ago, daring mariners from Europe found ,just such an island group. These isolated ocean isles are the Mid Atlantic Azores.

The Azores fill a dramatic page in the geographical history of the earth's past. These nine little islands also merit a page in man's ocean going history between the Old World and the New. They are strewn across about 400 miles of the Mid Atlantic and together they have enough dry land to cover some 900 square miles. Isolated in the vast expanse of watery ocean, you would think that no one would ever find them. But let's not forget the bold Portuguese sailors who explored so many unlikely places around the globe. One of these bold mariners was Gohzalo Cabral. In 1431, sailing 800 miles west of Portugal, he came upon the nine lonely, deserted islands. Cabral claimed them for Portugal and we call them the Azores.

The deserted islands were colonized by Portugal and soon began their romantic chapter in human history. Sailing ships between Europe and the Americas called at Ponta Delgado on the south coast of the largest island Sao Miguel, at Santa Cruz on the western island of Flores and at other island ports. Later, trans Atlantic telephone cables used the Azores to link the Old World and the New. Fayal Island is a meeting place for cabelines between Europe, the Americas and Africa. During the early days of aviation, planes refueled at stations in the Azores and in 1951 a treaty between Portugal and NATO allowed a navy base on Fayal Island.

The Azores are a province of Portugal and the 350,000 or so people who live there enjoy a mild, moist ocean climate. There are wooded hills and rich, fertile valleys with vineyards and orchards, farmlands and meadows. Touring the green islands you might never suspect their violent geographical past. But the Azores are volcanic islands erected by the earth's most massive mountain range. They are some of the loftiest peaks of the Mid Atlantic Ridge that reaches almost from the Arctic to Antarctic. This massive mountain range stands on the bed of the Atlantic which is about 2 1/2 miles deep. Most of its crest is a mile or more below the surface. But here and there its loftiest peaks rise high and dry above the waves and form Mid¬ Atlantic islands.

The Azores were created by seething eruptions from old volcanic peaks. Just in case we forget their origin, the earth gave us a reminder in 1957. Anew volcano erupted with steam and fury near Fayal Island. It rested for a month and then erupted to add a mile of new ground to the island.

Sao Miguel is the Portuguese name for Saint Michael and the Sao should be writ¬ten with a squiggle over the middle letter. This biggest of the nine islands covers 292 square miles and Ponto Delgado, biggest city of the Azores, is on its southern shores. The fertile island grows and abundance of tea and cereals, potatoes, grapes, and tobacco. The people of Flores Island, some 1,300 miles east of Newfoundland, go in for cattle and dairy farming. The highest hill of the Azores is 7,612 feet above sea level. But this peak, remember, sits on the shoulders of a massive moun¬tain standing on the seabed some 18,000 feet below the waves.