The extinction of volcanic activity is either only partial -- in which case
the subterranean fire seeks another passage of escape in the same mountain
chain -- or it is total, as in Auvergne. More recent examples are recorded
in historical times, of the total extinction of the volcano of Mosychlos,*
on the island sacred to Hephaestos (Vulcan), whose "high whirling flames"
were known to Sophocles; and of the volcano of Medina, which according to
Burckhardt, still continued to pour out a stream of lava on the 2d of
November, 1276.
[footnote] *Sophocl., 'Philoct.', v. 971 and 972. On the supposed epoch of
the extinction of the Lemnian fire in the time of Alexander, compare
Buttmann, in the 'Museum der Alterhumswissenschaft', bd. i., 1807, s. 295;
Dureau de la Malle, in Malte-Brun, 'Annales des Voyages', t. ix., 1809, p.
5; Ukert in Bertuch, 'Geogr. Ephemeriden', bd. xxxix., 1812, s. 361; Rhode,
'Res Lemnicae', 1829, p. 8; and Walter, 'Ueber Abnahame der Vulken.
Thatigkeit in Historischen Zeiten', 1844, s. 24. The chart of Lemmos,
constructed by Choiseul, makes it extremely probable that the extinct crater
of Mosychlos, and the island of Chryse, the desert habitation of Philoctetes
(Otfried Muller, 'Minyer', s. 300), have been long swallowed up by the sea.
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