Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/95

 OR, VULCAN S PEAK. 89 mind naturally adverted to the different accounts of ship wrecks of which he had read, and to a comparison between his own condition and those of other mariners who had been obliged to make their homes, for a time, on otherwise un inhabited islands. In this comparison, Mark saw that many things made greatly against him, on the one hand; while, on the other, there were many others for which he had every reason to be profoundly grateful. In the first place, this island was, AS yet, totally without vegetation of every kind. It had neither plant, shrub, nor tree. In this he suffered a great privation, and it even remained to be proved by actual experiment, whether he was master of what might be con sidered the elements of soil. It occurred to him that something like vegetation must have shown itself, in or about the crater, did its debris contain the fertilizing prin ciple, Mark not being sufficiently versed in the new science of chemical agriculture, to understand that the admixtures of certain elements might bring to life forces that then were dormant. Then the Reef had no water. This was a very, very great privation, the most serious of all, and might prove to be a terrible calamity. It is true that, just at that moment, there was a shower every day, and some times two or three of them ; but it was then spring, and there could be little reason to doubt that droughts would come in the hot and dry season. As a last objection, the Reef had no great extent, and no variety, the eye taking it all in at a glance, while the crater was its sole relief against the dullest monotony. Nor was there a bit of wood, or fuel of any sort to cook with, after the supply now in the ship should be exhausted. Such were the leading dis advantages of the situation in which our mariners were placed, as compared with those into which most other shipwrecked seamen had been thrown. The advantages, on the other hand, Mark, in humble gratitude to God, admitted to be very great. In the first place, the ship and all she contained was preserved, giving them a dwelling, clothes, food and water, as well as fuel, for a long time to come ; possibly, aided by what might be gleaned on even that naked reef, sufficient to meet all their wants for the duration of a human life. The cargo of the 8*