canoes, sending out hot from their craters the flood of lava
and the heated rocks which now lie cold and hard, and overgrown with
moss, to tell us of their past history.

Of course, while this was going on there could be no life either of
plants or animals on the mountain, which, indeed, as yet could scarcely
be called an island, only a bare rock, around which the waves would
beat, as if in hopeless endeavor to extinguish the fire which glowed
deep in its caverned centre. But though neither waves nor storms could
make this fire die out, yet there comes a time to most of these volcanic
islands when the life and energy of the mountain seems gone, taken away,
we know not how, by the same Great Hand that lighted it, and the lonely
rock is now ready to be turned into a home for man, for this silent
crater, this hard, broken crag, will, after a time, become a fair island
home. God does not leave His works incomplete, and He has servants who
will change this desolate rock into a fertile garden.

He sends the waves; they dash on the sides of the island, which rise
generally abrupt and strong from the deep waters, and wherever they can
find entrance they wear and powder the rock until it becomes fine soil,
and a little beach is formed. Then rains fall and fill the clefts and
hollows of the rock, and soften it at length as they wash down its face,
till here and there patches of scanty soil are formed.

But something more than soil is needed; the most fertile land cannot of
itself produce grass or herbs; there must be a seed before even the
smallest weed can spring up, and those which float about in the air with
us, are not found on a volcanic rock far away in the sea.

But messengers are prepared to bring them. Birds flying over the water
sometimes stoop their wings to rest awhile on the rock, and often leave
behind them seeds which they have gathered in far distant lands. At
first, perhaps, only a few small weeds are seen. These, dying in their
turn, improve the soil for their successors, until at length it can
support shrubs and undergrowth, the seeds of which are sometimes washed
on the shore by the waves, or found hidden in the clefts of some tree
which has floated to the island from a distant shore.

Last of all arises, like a crown of beauty, the graceful cocoa-nut palm,
spreading broad leaves around its tall, slender stem, and making the
once barren rock a shady and lovely retreat.

The island on which Alexander Selki