the Old
Kaimeni, also called Hiera, or the "Sacred Isle," and in the year 19 of
our era "Thia" (the Divine) made its appearance above water, and was
soon joined by subsequent eruptions to the older island, from which it
was only 250 paces distant. The Old Kaimeni also increased successively
in size in 726 and in 1427. A century and a half later, in 1573, another
eruption produced the cone and crater called Micra-Kaimeni, or "the
Small Burnt Island." The next great event which we find recorded
occurred in 1650, when a submarine outbreak violently agitated the sea,
at a point three and a half miles to the N. E. of Thera, and which gave
rise to a shoal (see A in the map) carefully examined during the late
survey in 1848 by Captain Graves, and found to have ten fathoms water
over it, the sea deepening around it in all directions. This eruption
lasted three months, covering the sea with floating pumice. At the same
time an earthquake destroyed many houses in Thera, while the sea broke
upon the coast and overthrew two churches, exposing to view two
villages, one on each side of the mountain of St. Stephen, both of
which must have been overwhelmed by showers of volcanic matter during
some previous eruptions of unknown date.[607] The accompanying evolution
of sulphur and hydrogen issuing from the sea killed more than fifty
persons, and above 1000 domestic animals. A wave, also, 50 feet high,
broke upon the rocks of the Isle of Nia, about four leagues distant, and
advanced 450 yards into the interior of the Island of Sikino. Lastly, in
1707 and 1709, Nea-Kaimeni, or the New Burnt Island, was formed between
the two others, Palaia and Micra, the Old and Little isles. This isle
was composed originally of two distinct parts; the first which rose was
called the White Island, composed of a mass of pumice, extremely porous.
Gorce, the Jesuit, who was then in Santorin, says that the rock "cut
like bread," and that, when the inhabitants landed on it, they found a
multitude of full-grown fresh oysters adhering to it, which they
ate.[608] This mass was afterwards covered, in great part, by the matter
ejected from the crater of a twin-island formed simultaneously, and
called Black Island, consisting of brown trachyte. The trachytic lava
which rose on this spot appears to have been a long time in an
intumescent state, for the New Kaimeni was sometimes lowered on one side
while it gained height on the other, and rocks rose up in the sea at
di