524 DOMAIN XII. VOLCANIC. 



Thera. " The island of Them, afterwards St. Irene, 

 and now Santorin, was surnamed by the Grecians 

 Kaptvoi, that is to say, burnt : and so in fact the 

 soil is. ' There is a tradition/ says Pliny, lib. 2. 

 cap. 87, ' that it rose out of the sea, at a very re- 

 mote but unknown period.' This tradition is ren- 

 dered probable, by the known events, which have 

 since taken place near it. 



" This island with that of Milo, of which we 

 have spoken, and that of Paros, so famous for its 

 marble, forms a triangle, the sides of which are 

 about fifteen leagues each. I suspect that there 

 is a considerable central fire among them, of which 

 the volcano of Milo might have formerly been an 

 exhaling point above water ; though it is certainly 

 at present unconnected with it, which appears 

 from the effects of that volcano being in themselves 

 slight, and from the situation of Milo being no- 

 wise affected in the great commotions of Santorin. 

 I found my suspicion of this central fire on a vast 

 Burnt isles, number of small burnt islands, as they are called 

 on the chart of that sea, which are scattered in the 

 midst of the three principal islands, and of which 

 several had not appeared till within the eighteenth 

 century. Almost all of them are near Milo, where 

 there is less depth of water. I should imagine 

 that these small islands are simply the productions 

 of the central fire. The sea, on the contrary, is 



