Michael, etc.', Boston, 1822, gives an
interesting account of the sudden appearance of the island named Sabrina
which was about a mile in circumference, and two or three hundred feet above
the level of the ocean. After continuing for some weeks, it sank into the
sea. Dr. Webster describes the whole of the island of St. Michael as
volcanic, and containing a number of conical hills of trachyte, several of
which have craters, and appear at some former time to have been the openings
of volcanoes. The hot springs which abound in the island are impregnated
with sulphureted hydrogen and carbonic acid gases, appearing to attest the
existence of volcanic action.] -- Tr.
The island which Captain Tillard named 'Sabrina', appeared unfortunately at
a time (the 30th of January, 1811) when the political relations of the
maritime nations of Western Europe prevented that attention being bestowed
upon the subject by scientific institutions which was afterward directed to
the sudden appearance (the 2d of July, 1831), and the speedy destruction of
the igneous island of Ferdinandea in the Sicilian Sea, between the limestone
shores of Sciacca and the purely volcanic island of Pantellaria.*
[footnote] *Prevost, in the Bulletin de la Societe Geologique, t.
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