248 THE ATMOSPHERE TRANQUIL. 



brought all the elements into play. Its smallness 

 is indeed an advantage to those who study it, be- 

 cause it comes as near to being an experiment in 

 the making of islands^ by the action of fire as it is 

 possible for any thing in nature to come. The in- 

 ternal action, when deep below the water, was sen- 

 sible only in the motion communicated by the quaking 

 earth to the water over it ; and as the heat was only 

 one degree above the common temperature at twelve 

 yards from the island, one can hardly suppose that 

 any smoke or even steam could come to the sur- 

 face, or be produced, until the solid matter had risen 

 very nearly to that. On the 28th of June, when Sir 

 Pulteney Malcolm and his companions felt the shocks, 

 the. action had begun, but was going on quietly under 

 the water. It may be indeed that there is always 

 an action under that part of the Mediterranean, as 

 shoals are laid down near the place in some of the 

 charts ; and the Maltese have traditions about a 

 former island there. But Swinburne found no 

 bottom with a line of eighty fathoms, till he came 

 within twenty yards of the island, and there as has 

 been said, it was eighteen fathoms, or one hundred 

 and eight feet. That is an exceedingly abrupt slope, 

 and would meet the bottom of one hundred and 

 thirty fathoms deep, at little more than one-twelfth 

 part of a mile, if we suppose the slope uniform. The 

 rapidity of the slope, and the depth of the sounding 

 are not very consistent with the supposition that a 

 shoal in any way tended to the formation of the 

 island, though it is true, that with the same external 

 action, the bottom would rise more readily in shallow 

 water than in deep. 



The island was subsequently visited by various 

 persons, and the nature of its materials examined. 

 Ashes, a substance resembling cake, scoria of iron, 

 and burnt clay were the chief ones ; and there were 

 not many of the substances that are usually dis- 

 charged in the eruption of volcanoes. It should 



