338 
POPULAE SCIENCE EEYIEW. 
admirable work on the “ Principles of Geology/* and is re- 
ferred to by Humboldt, Scrope, and Daubeny. Wliat the 
state of the case may have been before the time of Pliny, we 
have no record : but it seems clear that an island arose, during 
a volcanic eruption, of considerable magnitude. Several small 
islands, three of them now known as Palaia (old), Hea (new), 
and Micra (little) Kaimeni, have since come into existence. 
The first is that of Pliny, and the last (Hea Kaimeni) rose in 
1707. It is the central and largest of the three. Kaimeni 
means “ burnt island/* and the term is explained by the fact 
that all the islands are mere lava heaps. Important eruptions 
took place in 1427, 1573, and 1650 ; but all these were inferior 
to that of 1707. 
The relative position of the islands will be seen in the chart 
in the accompanying plate. Santorin (anciently Thera) is a 
flattened table-land of limestone, crescent -shaped, rising to 
800 or 900 feet above the sea, with a limestone hill at the 
south-easterly extremity about double the general height of 
the island. There is a gentle slope from the sea, and an 
abrupt face towards the bay. The crescent is filled up, and 
becomes a circle by the islands of Therasia and Aspronisi and 
shoals between them. The depth of water within the circle 
is very great. 
The outer circle of Santorin measures nearly 30 miles in 
circumference (24 land and 6 water), but the gulf within is of 
course much smaller. Regarded as a crater, this would seem 
enormous, when compared eyen with Kilauea ; but it is not a 
true volcanic crater. The limestone masses have been lifted 
up during or in anticipation of the volcanic disturbances that 
have formed the islands in the centre. Those are the only 
parts of the core of the true crater now left, and they are 
composed of volcanic tuff and lava. What is called the Gulf 
of Santorin is the whole interior of the great circle containing 
the real crater, fragments of which rise above the level of the sea. 
On the 30th of January of the present year, after several 
small earthquake shocks in the central part of the Gulf of 
Santorin, and a small depression in Hea Kaimeni, the sea 
assumed a white colour, and was violently disturbed. This 
took place around the two islands of Old and Hew Kaimeni, 
and especially in the channel between them. Loud subter- 
ranean noises were heard, which lasted several days. On the 
night of the day on which these noises commenced, an appear- 
ance as of red flame was seen rising from the sea in this 
channel. The next morning (January 31st) the sea became 
red, and the waters extremely bitter. During the day a fissure 
was produced on a promontory of Hew Kaimeni, separating 
a portion of the island from the rest, and poisonous gases 
