654 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 7 1 I , 



fire, or rather the sulphureous and burning exhalations, caused this great noise, 

 by turning from side to side in these winding caverns, and endeavouring to get 

 a passage out, which was difficult for them to find : which was the cause that 

 the noise of this subterraneous thunder was sometimes not so loud, and a little 

 while after became more violent, and sometimes was so stunning, that people 

 talking together could scarcely hear one another speak ; and that the Black 

 Island, which was already very high, seemed to crack on every side ; and in 

 short, that the inclosed fire, after several windings and turnings, having col- 

 lected a sufficient force, was able to break out with a noise equal to that of 

 several cannons discharged at once. 



August 21, the smoke and fire diminished considerably ; there did not appear 

 any in the night ; but the next day both returned, with greater force than at 

 any time before. The smoke was reddish, and very thick, and the fire so great, 

 that the water of the sea smoked and bubbled up all round the Black Island. 

 I had in the night the curiosity to view with a telescope the great fire that ap- 

 peared on the mountain of this island, and I numbered 6o openings or funnels, 

 which threw out very bright fires, and were divided from one another by rocks. 

 In all probability there were others, and perhaps as many, on the other side of 

 the mountain, which I could not see. Next morning I observed that the island 

 had been very much raised in the night ; that a range of rocks, about 50 feet 

 long, was risen out of the water, which made the island broader than it was be- 

 fore ; and that the sea was almost covered over with the reddish frothy matter 

 above mentioned. This matter, or froth, appeared on the sea, every time that 

 the island increased considerably ; and occasioned a stench much like that of the 

 sink of a ship : which we may imagine to arise from a slimy earth mixed with 

 sulphur, which being raised up with the rocks, and coming to be washed off by 

 the waves, was loosened and diluted by the water, and so sent up to the surface 

 the salts with which it was loaded. 



The fire had hitherto appeared only in one place, on the top of the Black 

 Island ; but on the 5th of September it made another passage, and appeared at 

 the end of that island, on the side next Terasia, another island which some au- 

 thors say was formerly joined to that of Santorini, and was separated from it by an 

 earthquake. The fire continued at this end only a few days, during which it 

 decreased at the place whence it used commonly to issue out. And here we 

 were very agreeably surprized, in seeing the fire 3 several times dart out from 

 this place without any noise, and rise up in the air like a large rocket. The 

 following days there was much the same spectacle ; for the subterraneous thun- 

 der, after having made a great noise, broke out from time to time with a clap 

 as loud as that of a cannon, and was accompanied with a very beautiful and 



