OEiaiN OF ISLANDS. 197 



still by tliat of the island of Panaria, that the waves constantly 

 lessen the submarine slopes by distributing to a distance the lava and 

 cinders rejected by the craters. 



Fig. 88.— Section of Panaria, from N.W. to S.E. 



Compared with the lands of continental origin, the truly insular 

 masses composed of lava, or built by the coral animals, have relatively 

 a very slight extent. It seems that, according to the general arrange- 

 ment of the globe, the separation must at first have been much more 

 marked between the sea and the emerged lands. On one side great 

 continuous countries, on the other desert oceans, appears to have 

 been the natural distribution. But the incessant work accomplished 

 on our planet, as on all the stars of heaven, has infinitely modified the 

 form of the continental surfaces and the channels which separate 

 them. In the same way as by its rains and snows the sea has scat- 

 tered lakes over the regions raised above its level, and traced the in- 

 numerable valle3^s of the water-courses_, so have the lands given to 

 ocean those myriads of islands and islets which vary its surface so 

 gracefully. The alluvium of the rivers, the erosive power of the 

 waves, the internal forces, which slowly raise or depress vast countries 

 or cause cones of lava to spring up suddenly from the deep ; finally, 

 the numerous organisms which assimilate the various substances con- 

 tained in sea-water, have all worked in concert to scatter here and 

 there islands of different forms and sizes, some in larger, and others 

 in smaller groups, or even completely isolated. Later, the winds, 

 rains, monsoons, and other meteoric influences of the atmosphere ; 

 the oceanic currents, the ebb and flow, the undulation of the waves, 

 all which moves and floats in the water and in the air, birds and fish, 

 seaweed and drifted wood, foam and dust — have never ceased to act 

 directly or indirectly, to introduce life into these islands, to people 

 them with species of animals and plants, and thus to prepare them 

 for the abode of man. 



