Curiosities of Science, Past and Present: A Book for Old and YoungTimbs, John
Science
Curiosities of Science, Past and Present: A Book for Old and Young
Timbs, John
Science
Among the most celebrated of these phenomena in our times may be
mentioned the Isle of Sabrina, which rose off the coast of St.
Michael’s in 1811, attained a circumference of one mile and a
height of 300 feet, and disappeared in less than eight months; in
the following year there were eighty fathoms of water in its place.
In July 1831 appeared Graham’s Island off the coast of Sicily,
which attained a mile in circumference and 150 or 160 feet in
height; its formation much resembled that of Sabrina.
The line of ancient subterranean fire which we trace on the
Mediterranean coasts has had a strange attestation in Graham’s Island,
which is also described as a volcano suddenly bursting forth in the mid
sea between Sicily and Africa; burning for several weeks, and throwing
up an isle, or crater-cone of scoriæ and ashes, which had scarcely been
named before it was again lost by subsidence beneath the sea, leaving
only a shoal-bank to attest this strange submarine breach in the
earth’s crust, which thus mingled fire and water in one common action.
Floating islands are not very rare: in 1827, one was seen twenty
leagues to the east of the Azores; it was three leagues in width, and
covered with volcanic products, sugar-canes, straw, and pieces of wood.
PERPETUAL FIRE.
Not far from the Deliktash, on the side of a mountain in Lycia, is the
Perpetual Fire described some forty years since by Captain Beaufort.
It was found by Lieutenant Spratt and Professor Forbes, thirty years
later, as brilliant as ever, and somewhat increased; for besides the
large flame in the corner of the ruins described by Beaufort, there
were small jets issuing from crevices in the side of the crater-like
cavity five or six feet deep. At the bottom was a shallow pool of
sulphureous and turbid water, regarded by the Turks as a sovereign
remedy for all skin complaints. The soot deposited from the flames was
held to be efficacious for sore eyelids, and valued as a dye for the
eyebrows. This phenomenon is described by Pliny as the flame of the
Lycian Chimera.
ARTESIAN FIRE-SPRINGS IN CHINA.
According to the statement of the missionary Imbert, the
Fire-Springs, “Ho-tsing” of the Chinese, which are sunk to obtain a
carburetted-hydrogen gas for salt-boiling, far exceed our artesian
springs in depth. These springs are very commonly more than 2000 feet
deep; and a spring of continued flow was found to be 3197 feet deep.
This natural gas has been used in the Chinese province Tse-tschuan for
several thousand years; and “portable gas” (in bamboo-canes) has for
ages been used in the city of Khiung-tscheu. More recently, in the
village of Fredonia, in the United States, such gas has been used both
for cooking and for illumination.
VOLCANIC ACTION THE GREAT AGENT OF GEOLOGICAL CHANGE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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