A more interesting example, because the circumstances are more minutely recorded, is the island which made its appearance in the Mediterranean, off the southwest coast of Sicily, in the year 1831. During its brief existence of three months, it received from contemporary writers seven different names; but the name of Graham Island seems to be the one by which it is most likely to be known to posterity. “About the tenth of July,” writes Sir Charles Lyell, “John Corrao, the captain of a Sicilian vessel, reported that, as he passed near the place, he saw a column of water like a waterspout, sixty feet high, and eight hundred yards in circumference, rising from the sea, and soon afterward a dense steam in its place, which ascended to the height of 1800 feet. The same Corrao, on his return from Girgenti, on the eighteenth of July, found a small island, twelve feet high, with a crater in the centre, ejecting volcanic matter and immense columns of vapor; the sea around being covered with floating cinders and dead fish. The scoriae were of a chocolate color, and the water, which boiled in the circular basin, was of a dingy red. The eruption continued with great violence to the end of the same month, at which time the island was visited by several persons, and amongst others by Captain Swinburne, R. N., and M. Hoffman, the Prussian Geologist.”[96] By the fourth of August the new island is said to have attained a height of 200 feet, and to have been three miles in circumference. Yet this was nothing more than the top of the volcanic cone; for, a few years before, Captain W. H. Smyth, in his survey, had found a depth of 600 feet at this very spot; and therefore the total height from the base of the mountain must have been 800 feet. From the beginning of August it began to melt away; and at the commencement of the following year, nothing remained of Graham Island but a dangerous shoal. But even of the islands that occupy a prominent place on the map of the world, there is not wanting evidence to show that a large number derive their origin from the action of volcanic power. Among these may be mentioned many of the Molucca and Philippine groups, also several in the Grecian Archipelago, and not a few of the Azores and the Canaries,--in particular the lofty peak of Teneriffe, rising 12,000 feet above the level of the sea. In some cases, indeed, the actual process of their birth, and of their subsequent growth and development, has been minutely observed. A remarkable example occurs among the Aleutian Islands already referred to. In the year 1796 a column of smoke was seen to issue from the sea; then a small black point appeared at the surface of the water; then flames broke out, and other volcanic phenomena were exhibited; then the small black point grew into an island, and the island increased in size until it was at last several thousand feet high, and two or three miles in circumference. And such it remains to the present day.