THE ATLANTIC OCEAN, I77 



zontal, and drawing up to them a quantity of water- 

 spouts, which formed a most beautiful and striking 

 addition to the general appearance of the scene." 



In the course of a few hours, a crater had been 

 thrown up by these eruptions, to the height of 

 twenty feet above the sea, and apparently three or 

 four hundred feet in diameter. Repeated shocks of 

 an earthquake accompanied the explosion. The 

 narrator was obliged to leave the neighbourhood 

 on the succeeding day, at which time the volcanic 

 eruption was seen from a distance to be still raging 

 with undiminished fury. About three weeks after- 

 wards he returned to the spot, and found all quiet, 

 but the newly-formed island had increased to a mile 

 in circumference, and the highest part appeared to 

 have an elevation of about two hundred and fortv 

 feet. On landing, he found the place still smoking, 

 and the larger crater nearly full of water in a boiling 

 state, w T hich was being discharged into the Ocean by 

 a stream about six yards across : this stream, close to 

 the edge of the sea, was so hot, as barely to admit 

 the momentary immersion of the finger.* On the 

 11th of October, in the same year, this island sank 

 beneath the Ocean from which it had emerged, 

 leaving a dangerous shoal in the neighbourhood, 

 thus realizing the traditionary fate of the island of 

 Atlantis. * , 



But let us pursue our voyage. As we follow the 

 setting sun to his bed among the Indian islands of 

 the west, the tedium of our way across the trackless 



* Trans. Roy. Soe. 1812. 

 12 



