^2 Mr Forbes's Physical Notices of the Bay of Naples. 



of tlie island is volcanic, and has very often been subjected to 

 remarkable shocks. Pliny relates, that, posterior to the ap- 

 pearance of Thera, and Therasia, the modern Aspronesi, to 

 which he gives a similar date, a small island named Hiera was 

 elevated, which now forms, according to Dr Daubeny, the 

 Burnt Island, or Great Cammeni. In A. D. 46, in the reign 

 of Claudius, a new small island was raised named Thia, which, 

 as it does not now exist, has been very plausibly conjectured 

 to have been united to it in a succeeding convulsion of 726, 

 when, according to the testimony of Theophanes, a Greek 

 author, a new island rose and was joined to Hiera, though 

 more probably the island was not new, but the ancient Thia 

 brought into contact with it. In 1457 an immense quantity of 

 rocks were raised to five or six feet above the level of the water, 

 forming a basin of a circular form, into which the sea entered. 

 In 1573 the lesser Cammeni, situated as well 'as the larger 

 island of the same name in the crater of Santorini, was thrown 

 up. In 1638 there was an eruption of pumice. In 1650 a 

 bank was formed ten fathoms under water. At length, on 

 the 18th of May 1707, an earthquake was felt at Santorini, 

 and on the 22d it was repeated. On the 23d of May, New 

 Stile, at break of day, an island was discovered rising between 

 the great and lesser Cammeni. After a few days it had ac- 

 quired a height of fifteen or twenty feet. It is remarkable that 

 smoke first appeared only on the 16th of July, — a fact affording 

 some remarkable illustrations of the evolution of elastic fluids 

 as connected with volcanic inflammation. The discharge of 

 sulphuretted-hydrogen-gas became so abundant, as to be ex- 

 tremely distressing to the inhabitants of the Island of Santo- 

 rini. About this time also a reef of black rocks rose, form- 

 ing a separate island, but which, from subsequent accumula- 

 tion, became the centre of this new-ejected mass. From this 

 period the water of the sea was much affected ; its colours were 

 various ; the fish died ; and so great a temperature it assumed, 

 that no boat could approach the new island. The gradual 

 accumulation of matter is one of the most extraordinary fea- 

 tures of the phenomenon. On the 21st of June it was only 

 half a mile in circumference, * which, by the 20th of Novem- 

 * Sherrard, Fhil. Trans' xxvi. 67. 



