[footnote] *Ovid's description of the eruption of Methone ('Metam.', xv., p. 226-306): "Near Troezene stands a hill, exposed in air To winter winds, of leafy shadows bare: This once was level ground; but (strange to tell) Th' included vapors, that in caverns dwell, Laboring with colic pangs, and close confined, In vain sought issue for the rumbling wind: Yet still they heaved for vent, and heaving still, Enlarged the concave and shot up the hill, As breath extends a bladder, or the skins Of goats are blown t'inclose the hoarded wines; The mountain yet retains a mountain's face, And gathered rubbish heads the hollow space." 'Dryden's Translation'. [footnote continues] This description of a dome-shaped elevation on the continent is of great importance in a geognostical point of view, and coincides to a remarkable degree with Aristotle's account ('Meteor.', ii., 89, 17-19) of the upheaval of islands of eruption: "The heaving of the earth does not cease till the wind [(Greek word)] which occasions the shocks has made its escape into the crust of the earth. It is not long ago since this actually happened at Heraclea in Pontus, and a similar event formerly occurred at Hiera, one of the Aeolian Islands. A portion of the earth swelled up, and with loud noise rose into the form of a hill, till the mighty urging blast [(Greek word)] found an outlet, and ejected sparks and ashes which covered the neighborhood of Lipari, and even extended to several Italian cities." In this description, the vesicular distension of the earth's crust (a stage at which many trachytic mountains have remained) is very well distinguished from the eruption itself. Strabo, lib. i., p. 59 (Casaubon), likewise describes the phenomenon as it occurred at Methone: near the town, in the Bay of Hermione, there arose a flaming eruption; a fiery mountain, seven (?) stadia in height, was then thrown up, which during the day was inaccessible from its heat and sulphureous stench, but at night evolved an agreeable odor (?) , and was so hot that the sea boiled for a distance of five stadia, and was turbid for full twenty stadia, and also was filled with detached masses of rock. Regarding the present mineralogical character of the peninsula of Methana, see Fiedler, 'Reise durch Griechenland', th. i., s. 257-263. p 241 Santorino is the most important of all the 'islands of eruption' belonging to volcanic chains.*