MY ISLANDS. 



or int'ertfai enei'Ji&s* Jfroln a depth of at least two 

 thousancteathoms* * : ** 



".I l>axl :&hy3B^hkd:a/i0at likin g for tlie study of 

 material 'pla'B'fcs *ahd I &hlmals, and I was so much 

 interested in the occurrence of this novel phenomenon 

 the growth and development of an oceanic island before 

 my very eyes that I determined to devote the next few 

 thousand centuries or so of my seonian existence to 

 watching the course of its gradual evolution. 



If I trusted to unaided memory, however, for my 

 dates and facts, I might perhaps at this distance of time 

 be uncertain whether the moment was really what I 

 have roughly given, within a geological age or two, the 

 period of the Mid-Miocene. But existing remains on 

 one of the islands constituting my group (now called in 

 your new-fangled terminology Santa Maria) help me to 

 fix with comparative certainty the precise epoch of 

 their original upheaval. For these remains, still in 

 evidence on the spot, consist of a few small marine 

 deposits of Upper Miocene age; and I recollect dis- 

 tinctly that after the main group had been for some time 

 raised above the surface of the ocean, and after sand and 

 streams had formed a small sedimentary deposit con- 

 taining Upper Miocene fossils beneath the shoal water 

 surrounding the main group, a slight change of level 

 occurred, during which this minor island was pushed up 

 with the Miocene deposits on its shoulders, as a sort of 

 natural memorandum to assist my random scientific 

 recollections. With that solitary exception, however, 

 the entire group remains essentially volcanic in its com- 

 position, exactly as it was when I first saw its youthful 



