68 Prof. BischoF on the Natural History of 



wardt.* Near the active volcano of Gonung Api, in the group 

 of the Banda Islands^ a considerable mass of black rock rose up 

 in a bay, out of the sea, without any noise. When Reinwardt 

 visited this extraordinary spot in 1821, he found it still very hot, 

 and the newly raised mass sent forth boiling hot vapours. A 

 precisely similar occurrence took place on the Coast of Ternate. 

 On Lancerote also, on the 31st August 1824, after several days 

 of violent earthquakes, accompanied with a subterranean thunder 

 like noise, a new volcano burst forth with a terrific crash, emit- 

 ting streams of fire, so that the whole island was illuminated, 

 and throwing up so many red hot stones and fragments of 

 rock, as to form a mountain within twenty-four hours.t 



The last occurrence we shall mention, and which is still fresh 

 in our memory, namely, the volcanic island which appeared 

 in July 1830, in the Mediterranean, between the south-west 

 coast of Sicily and Pantellaria, shews, that these phenomena 

 may take place in two different ways. New islands may be 

 formed in the sea either by the elevation of solid rock, by violently 

 breaking and raising up the original strata, or merely by the 

 heaping up of the loose masses which are ejected.]; This event 

 was of the latter description, and in its ephemeral existence ex- 

 actly resembles the above-mentioned case in the Azores. Under 

 which of these forms such volcanic productions appear, may de- 

 pend on the nature and thickness of the rocks to be broken through, 

 on the depth of the sea at the place of the eruption, and the 

 strength of the volcanic force. However, the visible part of this 

 island may, perhaps, as is the case with many others, only have 

 been the summit of a peak situated in the centre of a crater of 

 elevation, wliich remained buried in the sea, similar to the cones 

 of many land volcanos, which, if they had been situated in the 

 sea, would have been unable long to withstand the action of the 

 waves, as is the case with most of these islands. Hoffman,^ 

 who approached very near to this island, shortly after its ap- 

 pearance, saw quite plainly, that it was nothing else than the 



* De incendiis montium igui ardentiuni insulse Javsc, &c. disputatio geo- 

 logica. Aiictore van der Boon Mesch. Lugdimi, Batav. 1826. 

 f Annal. de Cliim. et de Pliys, t. xxvii. p. 382. 



X See, on the contrary, Von Humboldt in his Beise, t. i. p. 254, note. 

 § Poggendorft's Ann. t. xxiv. p. 75. 



