ISLAND Ofc' SABliii'A. 
109 
Appear to me ill-founded. 1 think there is as little pro- 
bability that mountains of granite, gneiss, or primitive 
calcareous stone have existed where we now see the tops 
of the Peak, of Vesuvius, and of Etna, as in the plains 
where almost in our own time has been formed the volcano 
of Jorullo. which is more than a third of the height ot 
Vesuvius. On examining the circumstances which accom- 
panied the formation of the new island, called Sabrina, 
in the archipelago of the Azores;* on carefully reading 
the minute and simple narrative, given by the Jesuit 
Bourguignon of the slow appearance ot the islet of the 
little Kameni, near Santorino ; we find that these extra- 
ordinary eruptions arc generally preceded by a sw el ling 
of the softened crust ot the globe. Hocks appear aboie 
the waters before the flames force their way , or la\ a 
issue from the crater : wo must distinguish between the 
nucleus raised up. and the mass ot lavas and scorite, which 
successively increases its dimensions. 
It is true that from all existing records ot revolutions 
of this kind, the pcrpeudicidar height of the stony nucleus 
appears never to have exceeded one hundred and fifty or 
two hundred toises ; even taking into the account the depth 
of the sea, the bottom of which had been lifted up: but 
when considering the great effects ot nature, and the in- 
tensity of its forces, the bulk ot the masses must not deter 
the geologist in his speculations. Every thing indicates 
that the physical changes of which tradition has preserved 
the remembrance, exhibit but a feeble image of those 
gigantic catastrophes which have given mountains their 
present form, changed the positions ot the rocky strata, 
* At Sabrina island, near St. Michael’s, the crater opened at the foot 
of a solid rock, of almost a cubical form. ’Ibis rock, surmounted bv 
a small elevated plain perfectly level, is more than t:vo hundred toises in 
breadth. Its formation was anterior to that of the crater, into which, a 
few days after its opening, the sea made an irruption. At Kameni, the 
smoke was not even visible till twenty-six days after tbe appearance of 
the upbeaved rocks. Phil. Trans, vol. xxvi, p. 69 and 200, vol. xxvii., p. 
353. All these phenomena, on which Mr. Hawkins collected very 
valuable observations during bis abode at Santorino, are unfavourable to 
the idea commonly entertained of the origin of volcanic mountains. They 
are usually ascribed to a progressive accumulation of liquified matter, and 
the diffusion of lavas issuing from a central mouth. 
