NEW ISLANDS FORMED. 311 



preceding, and formed 130 years subsequently. In 

 our time, 110 years later than the above, during the 

 consulate of M. Julius Sihmns and L. Balbus (year 

 19 A.D.) appeared Thia." 



Many other ancient autliors — among the rest 

 Justin, Cassiodorus, Dion Cassius, Plutarch, Seneca, 

 and Strabo — give very circumstantial details of the 

 successive birth and growth of some of these islands 

 by their elevation out of the sea. But the origin 

 of some of them is surrounded with purely fabu- 

 lous circumstances, and we are obliged to leject 

 nearly all the ancient narratives as being but little 

 worthy of belief. Volcanic phenomena were not 

 seriously studied, or even carefully observed, until 

 modern times. 



One of the most celebrated islands of the Grecian 

 Archipelago is Thera, subsequently named Sante- 

 Irene, and later, San torin.* Haifa league from this 

 island now exists Apronysi, the ancient Therasia. It 

 appeared for the first time in 236 B.C. (the fourth year 

 of the 135th Olympiad, according to Pliny, cited 

 above). Automate appeared 130 years after (106 B.C.), 

 and was named Hiera in consequence of the worship 



* Siintorin is an immense crateriform mountain, some thirty-six 

 miles in circimiferenca It may be accurately describ* d ns a furnace 

 of incessant volcanic activity, some part of it being almost cou- 

 btantly in eruption.— Tu. 



