fire whose dense and sulphurous smoke forever issues from this bare and
desolate peak? Whence the mighty forces that produced that peak, and
still from time to time exhibit themselves in the earthquakes that
always occur in the vicinity of volcanic vents? The knowledge from
childhood of the fact that volcanoes and earthquakes exist, has taken
away somewhat of the strange and exceptional character that really
belongs to them. The inhabitant of most parts of northern Europe sees in
the earth the emblem of stability and repose. His whole life-experience,
and that of all his age and generation, teaches him that the earth is
solid and firm, that its massive rocks may contain water in abundance,
but never fire; and these essential characteristics of the earth are
manifest in every mountain his country contains. A volcano is a fact
opposed to all this mass of experience, a fact of so awful a character
that, if it were the rule instead of the exception, it would make the
earth uninhabitable a fact so strange and unaccountable that we may be
sure it would not be believed on any human testimony, if presented to us
now for the first time, as a natural phenomenon happening in a distant
country.
The summit of the small island is composed of a highly crystalline
basalt; lower down I found a hard, stratified slatey sandstone, while
on the beach are huge blocks of lava, and scattered masses of white
coralline limestone. The larger island has coral rock to a height of
three or four hundred feet, while above is lava and basalt. It seems
probable, therefore, that this little group of four islands is the
fragment of a larger district which was perhaps once connected with
Ceram, but which was separated and broken up by the same forces which
formed the volcanic cone. When I visited the larger island on another
occasion, I saw a considerable tract covered with large forest
trees--dead, but still standing. This was a record of the last great
earthquake only two years ago, when the sea broke in over this part of
the island and so flooded it as to destroy the vegetation on all
the lowlands. Almost every year there is an earthquake here, and at
intervals of a few years, very severe ones which throw down houses and
carry ships out of the harbour bodily into the streets.
Notwithstanding the losses incurred by these terrific visitations, and
the small size and isolated position of these little islands, they have
been and still are of considerable value to the Dutch Government, as the
chief nutmeg-garden in the world. Almost the whole surface is planted
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