I placed my hand on one of the panes of glass,
but the heat was so great that I quickly took it off again.
"Where are we?" I asked.
"Near the Island of Santorin, sir," replied the Captain.
"I wished to give you a sight of the curious spectacle of
a submarine eruption."
"I thought," said I, "that the formation of these new islands was ended."
"Nothing is ever ended in the volcanic parts of the sea,"
replied Captain Nemo; "and the globe is always being worked by
subterranean fires. Already, in the nineteenth year of our era,
according to Cassiodorus and Pliny, a new island, Theia
(the divine), appeared in the very place where these islets
have recently been formed. Then they sank under the waves,
to rise again in the year 69, when they again subsided.
Since that time to our days the Plutonian work has been suspended.
But on the 3rd of February, 1866, a new island, which they named
George Island, emerged from the midst of the sulphurous vapour
near Nea Kamenni, and settled again the 6th of the same month.
Seven days after, the 13th of February, the Island of Aphroessa
appeared, leaving between Nea Kamenni and itself a canal ten
yards broad.
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