ted, but a spot where Captain W. H. Smyth
had found, in his survey a few years before, a depth of more than one
hundred fathoms water.[594]

[Illustration: Fig. 58. Form of the cliffs of Graham Island, as seen
from S. S. E., distant one mile, 7th August, 1831.[596]]

[Illustration: Fig. 59. View of the interior of Graham Island, 29th
Sept., 1831.]

[Illustration: Fig. 60. Graham Island, 29th Sept., 1831.[597]]

The position of the island (lat. 37 degrees 8 minutes 30" N., long. 12
degrees 42 minutes 15" E.) was about thirty miles S. W. of Sciacca, in
Sicily, and thirty-three miles N. E. of Pantellaria.[595] On the 28th of
June, about a fortnight before the eruption was visible, Sir Pulteney
Malcolm, in passing over the spot in his ship, felt the shocks of an
earthquake, as if he had struck on a sand-bank; and the same shocks were
felt on the west coast of Sicily, in a direction from S. W. to N. E.
About the 10th of July, John Corrao, the captain of a Sicilian vessel,
reported that, as he passed near the place, he saw a column of water
like a water-spout, sixty feet high, and 800 yards in circumference,
rising from the sea, and soon afterwards a dense steam in its place,
which ascended to the height of 1800 feet. The same Corrao, on his
return from Girgenti, on the 18th of July, found a small island, twelve
feet high with a crater in its 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 among others
by Capt. Swinburne, R. N., and M. Hoffmann, the Prussian geologist. It
was then from fifty to ninety feet in height, and three-quarters of a
mile in circumference. By the 4th of August it became, according to some
accounts, above 200 feet high, and three miles in circumference; after
which it began to diminish in size by the action of the waves, and it
was only two miles round on the 25th of August; and on the 3d of
September, when it was carefully examined by Captain Wodehouse, only
three-fifths of a mile in circumference; its greatest height being then
107 feet. At this time the crater was about 780 feet in circumference.
On the 29th of September, when it was visited by Mons. C. Prevost, its
circumferenc