Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/335

 “Is it, then, outside the ship?”

“Certainly; we are floating in a current of boiling water.”

“Is it possible?” I exclaimed.

“Look!”

The panels were opened, and I could perceive that the sea was quite white around the Nautilus. A sulphurous vapour rolled amid the waves, which boiled like water in a copper. I placed my hand against one of the windows, but the heat was so great I had to withdraw it.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Close to the island of Santorin,” replied the captain, “and in the canal which separates Nea-Kamenni from Palea-Kamenni. I wished to let you see a submarine eruption.”

“I thought that this formation of new islands had ceased,” I said.

“Nothing is ever at an end in volcanic localities,” replied Captain Nemo; “and the globe is always being moved by these subterranean fires. According to Cassiodorno and Pliny, a new island—Thera (the divine)—appeared in the very place in which these islands have been formed, about the nineteenth year of our era. Then they sank, to rise again in 69, and again disappeared. Since then, to our time, this Plutonian work has been suspended. But on the 3rd of February, 1866, a new island, called George Island, rose near Nea-Kamenni, and disappeared upon the 6th of the same month. Seven days after, the island of Aphroessa appeared, leaving a passage about twelve yards wide between it and Nea-Kamenni. I was in these seas when it happened, and I was able to observe the phases. The island of Aphroessa, of a rounded form, measured 300 feet across and 30 feet in height. It was composed of a black and vitreous lava, mingled with felspar. Finally, on the 10th of March, a smaller