JOURNEY TO NEW GUINEA AND NEW BRITAIN. 797 
comparatively shallow bank of reef in the bay, but over which I 
had often sailed in my boat. It was quite hot, and as it was impos- 
sible for anyone to walk on it without shoes, I had to land alone. 
The steam was very dense, and I soon lost sight of the boat, as my 
crew also did of me. Often I had to stop and wait for a puff of 
wind before I could see whether I could step over some crevices 
out of which the steam was hissing. I soon found that the centre 
of the island was a crater of boiling water, near to which it was 
not safe to venture. IJ managed to keep a zigzag course until my 
course was stopped by a large stream of hot water running from 
the crater to the bay. I often landed on the island afterwards 
and noticed that the water remained hot for some years, but the 
crater was gradually filled up by the subsiding pumice around it. 
This island has been named Vulcan Island. I visited the same 
island a few months ago, and these are some of the changes which 
I noticed as having taken place during the eighteen years which 
have elapsed since it was upheaved from the sea. It is now only 
about 30 feet high, and that only at one end. This I attribute 
to the consolidation of the ejected matter and to the wearing 
away by wind and weather. ‘These influences have also affected 
its circumference, as I judged that is not now more than 2 miles 
in circumference. A channel which formerly existed between the 
new island and a small rocky islet has been filled up with the 
material washed away from the shore of the new island. The 
whole island is covered with scrub, and there are Casuarina trees 
on it which have attained a height of 30 or 40 feet. 
This account shows that the progress of disintegration and the 
growth of vegetation consequent thereon are very rapid in these 
tropical countries, and it will also show, 1 think, that, whilst 
voleanic areas are areas of subsidence, they are areas of upheaval 
also, and that to a much greater extent than is believed by many 
in the present age. 
So far as my experience in New Britain is concerned, I am 
quite satisfied that the peculiar feature of the coral formations in 
that group can only be accounted for by upheaval, and not, so far 
as I have seen, by any process of subsidence, though I believe 
that this will account for many other formations in other groups 
in the Pacific. 
