448 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I7O8. 



the mean time the burnt island increased prodigiously, and extended itself prin- 

 cipally on the south and north sides ; the sea also seemed much more disturbed 

 and loaded with sulphur and vitriol : the boiling of the water was more fierce 

 and violent; the smoke thicker, and in greater abundance; and the fire larger 

 and more frightful. But above all, a stench that infected the whole country 

 grew so insupportable, that persons of the strongest constitutions could scarcely 

 breathe in it; others, that were weaker, fell into frequent fainlings ; and almost 

 every body was seized with vomitings. I could not then but imagine myself on 

 board some man of war, where at a general discharge of all the guns, the con- 

 fused stink of the powder, tar, and stench of the ship, especially in foul wea- 

 ther, often overcomes the strongest seamen. Just such a nauseous stench we 

 were forced to breathe in, without being able anywise to avoid it, or defend 

 ourselves from it. This ill scent was very mischievous, it spoiled most of the 

 vines ; and a great smoke that rose out of the midst of this new island like a 

 mountain, uniting to a thick fog, that commonly hangs over Santerini when 

 the wind is at south, burnt and destroyed, in the beginning of August, in less 

 than three hours time, all the fruit that was ripe and ready to be gathered, 

 especially in such vineyards as lay most exposed to the south. A few days after 

 I was obliged to go to Naxus, so that I was absent 13 or 14 days; in which 

 short space of time there was so great an alteration in these two new islands, 

 that I scarcely knew them again at my return. The white one, that did not 

 seem to increase any more, was now grown considerably higher; and the black 

 one was much longer. Both of them, though different in colour, were now 

 united together, and made but one island, as they remain at this time. The 

 fire and smoke had made new vent-holes, and the noise underground was 

 more frequent and audible. They told me, that in my absence they heard from 

 the midst of the island, as it were, so many large cannon shot oflT, and at the 

 same instant saw a great quantity of burning stones thrown into the air. And 

 a few days after I was myself an eye-witness of so prodigious and frightful a 

 spectacle. I watched day and night these furious discharges, which made the 

 doors and windows of our chambers shake, and sometimes the very best built 

 hcFQises ; and I saw several times stones all on fire darted into the air out of 

 sight, and afterwards fall again like a bomb, and quenched in the sea at more 

 than 5 miles distance. 



When these discharges happened, which were as loud as those of a cannon, 

 we commonly saw immediately a great flash of fire like lightning, and after 

 that, there sprung up very swiftly a black and dismal smoke, mixed with ashes, 

 and so exceedingly thick, that when spread in the air, it made a thick cloud of 

 leveral colours, which gradually dissolving in a fine dust, fell like rain on all the 



