THE ATLANTIC OCEAN. 175 
ceeded from that cause, and on our anchoring the 
next morning in the road of Ponta del Gada, we 
found this conjecture correct as to the cause, but 
not as to the time; the eruption of January having 
totally subsided, and the present one having only 
burst forth two days prior to our approach, and 
about three miles distant from the one before al- 
luded to.” 
The Captain having proceeded to a cliff on the 
island of St. Michael’s, about three or four hundred 
feet high, from which the eruption was scarcely a 
mile distant, proceeds to describe its appearance: 
“Imagine an immense body of smoke rising from 
the sea, the surface of which was marked by the 
silvery rippling of the waves. In a quiescent state, 
it had the appearance of a circular cloud revolving 
on the water, like a horizontal wheel, in various and 
irregular involutions, expanding itself gradually on 
the lee side; when suddenly, a column of the 
blackest cinders, ashes, and stones, would shoot up 
in the form of a spire, at an angle of from ten to 
twenty degrees from a perpendicular line, the angle 
of inclination being universally to windward; this 
was rapidly succeeded by a second, third, and fourth 
shower, each acquiring greater velocity, and over- 
topping the other, till they had attained an altitude 
as much above the level of our eye as the sea was 
below it. 
“As the impetus with which the several columns 
were severally propelled diminished, and their as- 
cending motion had nearly ceased, they broke into 
various branches resembling a group of pines: these 
