444 CAPE OF GOOD HOPE TO ENGLAND CH. xix 



of Mr. Maskelyne, who was sent out to this island by the 

 Royal Society for the purpose of observing the transit of 

 Venus in the year [1761]. 



Some Account of St. Helena. 



This small island, which is no more than twelve miles 

 long and seven broad, is situated in a manner in the middle 

 of the vast Atlantic Ocean, being 400 leagues distant from 

 the coast of Africa and above 600 from that of America. 

 It appears to be, or rather is, the summit of some immense 

 mountain, which towering far above the level of the earth 

 (in this part of the globe very much depressed) elevates itself 

 even considerably above the surface of the sea, which covers 

 its highest neighbours with a body of water even to this time 

 unfathomable by the researches of mankind. 



The higher parts of all countries have been observed 

 almost without exception to be the seats of volcanoes, 1 while 

 the lower parts are much more seldom found to be so. Etna 

 and Vesuvius have no land higher than themselves in their 

 neighbourhood. Hecla is the highest hill in Iceland ; in the 

 highest parts of the Andes in South America volcanoes are 

 frequent, and the Pike of Teneriife is still on fire. These 

 still continue to burn, but numberless others have been 

 found to show evident marks of fire, although now extinct 

 from the times of our earliest traditions. 



That this has been the case with St. Helena, and that the 

 great inequalities of the ground there have been originally 

 caused by the sinking of the ground, easily appears to an 

 observing eye, who compares the opposite ridges, which, though 

 separated always by deep and sometimes by tolerably broad 

 valleys, have such a perfect similarity in appearance as well 

 as in direction as scarce leaves room for a doubt that they 

 formerly made part of a much less uneven surface, and that 

 this sinking in of the earth has been occasioned by sub- 

 terraneous fires. The stones abundantly testify to this, as 

 they universally show marks of having been at some time 



1 This is not accurate ; nor is Hecla the highest mountain in Iceland. 



