•■^ No. VI. — District of the Bay of Baja. 83 



ber, had increased to three miles, * and it was then thirty-five 

 or forty feet high. Things continued much the same with 

 various paroxysmal eruptions, till February 10, 1708, when 

 they became more violent and tremendous, with alarming sub- 

 terranean noises. These symptoms continued long without 

 any particular result. In May of that year the mountain had 

 increased to 200 feet in height, and five miles in circumfer- 

 ence, f The state of things remained much the same for a con- 

 siderable time, and in July 1711, the island was six miles in cir- 

 cumference. In 1712 tranquillity seems to have been restored. 

 This account contrasts remarkably with the rapid elevation of 

 the Monte Nuovo. We must, however, remember that the 

 whole mass to be elevated at Santorini was enormous from the 

 great depth of the water above which this island, merely the 

 summit of a vast cone, had to be raised. In 1708 Father 

 Goree found no bottom near its shore with a line of ninety-five 

 fathoms. In its way the island of Santorini is not less in- 

 structive and remarkable than the case before us in the Bay of 

 Naples. It forms an obviously valuable lesson for the study 

 of geologists ; and its future paroxysms may yet have in store 

 uncommon treasures for the diligent observer of the effects, 

 and speculator upon the final causes of volcanos, in this com- 

 paratively advanced period of geological science. We observe, 

 that in the reports of the progress of the French commission 

 at this moment employed in the investigation of the natural 

 history and antiquities of Greece, that the distinguished Bory 

 St Vincent has examined the Island of Santorini, and thinks 

 that some speedy convulsion is at present menaced. 



An effect of volcanic explosion similar to that of the Monte 

 Nuovo, is related to have taken place ofl" the coast of Iceland in 

 1563, by the formation of a new island a mile in circumference, 

 at the period of the eruption of Shaptaa Jokul in 1783; but 

 we have no details to give of particular importance. It dis- 

 appeared the following year. It is likewise sufficient to men- 

 tion one of the Aleutian islands, which Kotzebue relates, on 

 the authority of the Russian hunters, was elevated from the 

 bed of the ocean in 1814. 



A very curious and interesting phenomenon occurred in 



* Bourgignon, Phil. Trans, xxvi. p. 200. t Father Goree, lb. xxvii. 354. 



