- Some Vast Commotion
Shook The Foundations Of The Island, And Bubbling Up From
Sources Far Away Amid The Inland Hills,
A fiery deluge
must have rushed down between their ridges, until, escaping
from the narrower gorges, it found space to
Spread itself
into one broad sheet of molten stone over an entire
district of country, reducing its varied surface to one
vast blackened level.
One of two things then occurred: either the vitrified
mass contracting as it cooled, - the centre area of fifty
square miles burst asunder at either side from the
adjoining plateau, and sinking down to its present level,
left the two parallel Gjas, or chasms, which form its
lateral boundaries, to mark the limits of the disruption;
or else, while the pith or marrow of the lava was still
in a fluid state, its upper surface became solid, and
formed a roof beneath which the molten stream flowed on
to lower levels, leaving a vast cavern into which the
upper crust subsequently plumped down. [Footnote: I feel
it is very presumptuous in me to hazard a conjecture on
a subject with which my want of geological knowledge
renders me quite incompetent to deal; but however incorrect
either of the above suppositions may be justly considered
by the philosophers, they will perhaps serve to convey
to the unlearned reader, for whose amusement (not
instruction) these letters are intended, the impression
conveyed to my mind by what I saw, and so help out the
picture I am trying to fill in for him.]
[Figure:
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