38 



A HISTORY OF 



A traveller, whom these appearances could 

 not avoid affecting, speaks of them in this 

 manner : a "What can be more surprising 

 than to see fire not only break out of the bow- 

 els of the earth, but also to make itself a pas- 

 sage through the waters of the sea! What 

 can be more extraordinary, or foreign to our 

 common notions of things, than to see the bot- 

 tom of the sea rise up into a mountain above 

 the water, and become so firm an island as to 

 be able to resist the violence of the greatest 

 storms ! I know that subterraneous fires, when 

 pent in a narrow passage, are able to raise 

 up a mass of earth as large as an island : but 

 that this should be done in so regular and ex- 

 act a manner that the water of the sea should 

 not be able to penetrate and extinguish those 

 fires; that after having made so many passa- 

 ges, they should retain force enough to raise 

 the earth ; and, in fine, after having been ex- 

 tinguished, that the mass of earth should not 

 fall down, or sink again with its own weight, 

 but still remain in a manner suspended over 

 the great arch below ! This is what to me 

 seems more surprising than any thing that 

 has been related of Mount J^tna, Vesuvius, 

 or any other volcano." 



Such are his sentiments : however, there 

 are few of these appearances any way more 

 extraordinary thcin those attending volcanoes 

 arid earthquakes in general. We are not more 

 to be surprised that inflammable substances 

 should be found beneath the bottom of the 

 sea, than at similar depths at land. These 

 have all the force of fire, giving expansion to 

 air, and tending to raise the earth at the bot- 

 tom of the sea, till it at length heaves above 

 water. These marine volcanoes are not so 

 frequent; for, if we may judge of the usual 

 procedure of nature, it must very often hap- 

 pen, that before the bottom of the sea is ele- 

 vated above the surface, a chasm is opened 

 in it, and then the water pressing in, extin- 

 guishes the volcano before it has time to pro- 



who arrived just at the time of the first eruption, when 

 smoke and flames ascended out of the sea, relates that no 

 island or any land could be seen, from which these flames 

 could originate. No wonder, then, that he fell into the 

 greatest consternation, when, as he expresses himself, he 

 saw the waves on fire. The following year the Danish 

 government directed, that all ships bound to Iceland 

 should examine the new-formed island ; but so entirely 



duce its effects. This extinction, however, 

 is not effected without very great resistance 

 from the fire beneath. The water, upon dash- 

 ing into the cavern, is very probably at first 

 ejected back with great violence ; and thus 

 some of those amazing water-spouts are seen, 

 which have so often astonished the mariner. 

 j and excited curiosity. But of these in their 

 place. 



Besides the production of those islands by 

 the action of fire, there are others, as was said, 

 produced by rivers or seas carrying mud, 

 earth, and such like substances, along with 

 their currents; and at last depositing them in 

 some particular place. At the mouths of 

 most great rivers, there are to be seen banks, 

 thus formed by the sand and mud carried 

 down with the stream, which have rested at 

 that place, where the force of the current is 

 diminished by its junction with the sea. These 

 banks, by slow degrees, increase at the bot 

 torn of the deep : the water in those places, 

 is at first found by mariners to grow more 

 shallow ; the bank soon heaves up above the 

 surface ; it is considered, for a while, as a 

 tract of useless and barren sand ; but the 

 seeds of some of the more hardy vegetables 

 are driven thither by the wind, take root, and 

 thus binding the sandy surface, the whole 

 spot is clothed in time with a beautiful ver- 

 dure. In this manner there are delightful 

 and inhabited islands at the mouths of many 

 rivers, particularly the Nile, the Po, the Mis- 

 sissippi, the Ganges, and the Senegal. There 

 has been, in the memory of man, a beautiful 

 and large island formed in this manner at the 

 mouth of the river Nanquin, in China, made 

 from depositions of mud at its opening : it is 

 not less than sixty miles long, and about 

 twenty broad. La Loubere informs us, 1 * in 

 his voyage to Siam, that these sand-banks in- 

 crease every day, at the mouths of all the 

 great rivers in Asia : and hence, he asserts, 

 that the navigation up these rivers becomes 



had it vanished, that none of them either saw or could 

 discover the smallest trace of it. However, towards the 

 end of the next year, a Danish ship of war, of 64 guns, was 

 wrecked on this rock ; which is now no longer visible, but 

 remains a most dangerous rock, nearly level with the sur- 

 face of the water. 



a Phil. Trans, vol. v. p. 197- 



b Lettres Curieuses et Edifiantes, sec. xi. p. 234. 



