C 152 3 
VII. A Narrative of the Eruption of a Volcano in the Sea off the 
Island of St. Michael. By S. Tillard, Esq. Captain in the 
Royal Navy. Communicated by the Right Hon. Sir Joseph 
Banks, Bart. K. B. P . R. S. 
Read February 6 , 1812. 
Approaching the island of St. Michael’s, on Sunday the 12th 
of June, 181 1, in His Majesty’s Sloop Sabrina, under my com- 
mand, we occasionally observed, rising in the horizon, two or 
three columns of smoke, such as would have been occasioned 
by an action between two ships, to which cause we universally 
attributed its origin. This opinion was, however, in a very 
short time changed, from the smoke increasing and ascending 
in much larger bodies than could possibly have been produced 
by such an event, and having heard an account, prior to our 
sailing from Lisbon, that in the preceding January or February 
a volcano had burst out within the sea near St. Michael’s, we 
immediately concluded that the smoke we saw proceeded 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 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 alluded to. 
Desirous of examining as minutely as possible a contention 
so extraordinary between two such powerful elements, I set 
