VOLCANOES. 241 



Santoniio is the most important of all ;ke isla7ids of erup- 

 tion belonging to volcanic chains.* " It combines within it 



As breath extends a bladder, or the skins 

 Of goats are blown t' inclose the hoarded wines ; 

 The mountain yet retains a mountain's face, 

 And gathered rubbish heads the hollow space." 



Dryden's Transladoiu 



This description of a dome-shaped elevation on the continent is of 

 ^reat importance in a geognostical point of view, and coincides to a re- 

 markable degree with Aristotle's account (^Meteor., ii., 8, 17-19) of the 

 upheaval of islands of eruption : " The heaving of the earth does not 

 cease till the wind (aVCjUOf) which occasions the shocks has made iti 

 escape into the crust of the earth. It is not long ago since this actually 

 happened at Heraclea in Pontus, and a similar event formerly occurred 

 at Hiera, one of the iEolian Islands. A portion of the earth swelled up, 

 and with loud noise rose into the form of a hill, till the mighty urging 

 blast (nvevfia) found an outlet, and ejected sparks and ashes which 

 covered the neighborhood of Lipari, and even extended to several 

 Italian cities." In this description, the vesicular distension of the 

 earth's crust (a stage at which many trachytic mountains have remained) 

 is very well distinguished from the eruption itself. Strabo, lib. i., p. 

 59 (Casaubon), likewise describes the phenomenon as it occurred at 

 Methone : near the town, in the Bay of Hermione, there arose a flaming 

 eruption ; a fiery mountain, seven (?) stadia in height, was then thrown 

 up, which during the day was inaccessible from its heat and sulphure- 

 ous stench, but at night evolved an agreeable odor (?), and was so hot 

 that the sea boiled for a distance of five stadia, and was turbid for full 

 twenty stadia, and also was filled with detached masses of z-ock. Re- 

 garding the present mineralogical character of the peninsula of Methana, 

 see Fiedler, Reise durch Griechenland, th. i., s. 257-263. 



* [I am indebted to the kindness of Professor E. Forbes for the fol 

 lowing interesting account of the island of Santorino, and the adjacent 

 islands of Neokaimeni and Micirokaimeui. *' The aspect of the bay is 

 that of a great crater filled with water, Thera and Therasia forming its 

 walls, and the other islands being after-productions in its center, VV^/ 

 sounded with 250 fathoms of line in the middle of the bay, between 

 Therasia and the main islands, but got no bottom. Both these islands 

 appear to be similarly formed of successive strata of volcanic ashes, 

 which, being of the most vivid and variegated colors, present a striking 

 contrast to the black and cindery aspect of the central isles. Neokai- 

 meni, the last-formed island, is a great heap of obsidian and scoriae. 

 So, also, is the greater mass, Microkaimeni, which rises up in a conical 

 form, and has a cavity or crater. On one side of this island, however, 

 a section is exposed, and cliffs of fine pumiceous ash appear stratified 

 in the greater islands. In the main island, the volcanic strata abut 

 against the limestone mass of Mount St. Elias in such a way as to lead 

 to the inference that they were deposited in a sea bottom in which the 

 present mountain rose as a submarine mass of rock. The people at 

 Santorino assured us that subterranean noises are not unfrequently 

 heard, especially during calms and south winds, when they say the 

 water of parts of the bay becomes the color of sulphur. My 'own im- 

 pression is, that this group of islands constitutes a crater of elevation, 

 of which the outer ones are the remains of the walls, while the central 

 group are of later origin, and consist partly of upheaved sea bottoma 

 Vol I— L 



