Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Heaving-Up Of The Softened
Crust Of The Globe Appears To Have Preceded The Eruption Of Flame
At The Crater, As Had Already Been Observed At The Volcanoes Of
Jorullo In Mexico, And On The Appearance Of The Little Island Of
Kameni, Near Santorino.
The new islet of the Azores was at first a
mere shoal; but on the 15th of June, an eruption, which lasted six
days, enlarged its extent, and carried it progressively to the
height of fifty toises above the surface of the sea.
This new land,
of which captain Tillard took possession in the name of the British
government, giving it the name of Sabrina Island, was nine hundred
toises in diameter. It has again, it seems, been swallowed up by
the ocean. This is the third time that submarine volcanoes have
presented this extraordinary spectacle near the island of St.
Michael; and, as if the eruptions of these volcanoes were subject
to periodical recurrence, owing to a certain accumulation of
elastic fluids, the island raised up has appeared at intervals of
ninety-one or ninety-two years.* (* Malte-Brun, Geographie
Universelle. There is, however, some doubt respecting the eruption
of 1628, to which some accounts assign the date of 1638. The rising
always happened near the island of St. Michael, though not
identically on the same spot. It is remarkable that the small
island of 1720 reached the same elevation as the island of Sabrina
in 1811.)
At the time of the appearance of the new island of Sabrina, the
smaller West India Islands, situated eight hundred leagues
south-west of the Azores, experienced frequent earthquakes.
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