The Crater, James Fenimore Cooper [good book club books TXT] 📗

the danger, if danger there was, was assuredly more remote. But the murky vapour which rendered breathing exceedingly difficult, also obstructed the view, and prevented his seeing where the explosion really was. For a brief space our young man fancied he must certainly be suffocated; but a shift of wind came, and blew away the oppressive vapour, clearing the atmosphere of its sulphurous and most offensive gases and odours. Never did feverish tongue enjoy the cooling and healthful draught, more than Mark rejoiced in this change. The wind had got back to its old quarter, and the air he respired soon became pure and refreshing. Had the impure atmosphere lasted ten minutes longer, Mark felt persuaded he could not have breathed it with any safety.

The light was now most impatiently expected by our young man. The minutes seemed to drag; but, at length, the usual signs of returning day became apparent to him, and he got on the bowsprit of the ship, as if to meet it in its approach. There he stood looking to the eastward, eager to have ray after ray shoot into the firmament, when he was suddenly struck with a change in that quarter of the ocean, which at once proclaimed the power of the effort which the earth had made in its subterranean throes. Naked rocks appeared in places where Mark was certain water in abundance had existed a few hours before. The sea-wall, directly ahead of the ship, and which never showed itself above the surface more than two or three inches, in any part of it, and that only at exceedingly neap tides, was now not only bare for a long distance, but parts rose ten and fifteen feet above the surrounding sea. This proved, at once, that the earthquake had thrust upward a vast surface of the reef, completely altering the whole appearance of the shoal! In a word, nature had made another effort, and islands had been created, as it might be in the twinkling of an eye.

Mark was no sooner assured of this stupendous fact, than he hurried on to the poop, in order to ascertain what changes had occurred in and about the crater. It had been pushed upward, in common with all the rocks for miles on every side of it, though without disturbing its surface! By the computation of our young man, the Reef, which previously lay about six feet above the level of the ocean, was now fully twenty, so many cubits having been, by one single but mighty effort of nature, added to its stature. The planks which led from the stern of the vessel to the shore, and which had formed a descent, were now nearly level, so much water having left the basin as to produce this change. Still the ship floated, enough remaining to keep her keel clear of the bottom.

Impatient to learn all, Mark ran ashore, for by this time it was broad daylight, and hastened into the crater, with an intention to ascend at once to the Summit. As he passed along, he could detect no change whatever on the surface of the Reef; everything lying just as it had been left, and the pigs and poultry were at their usual business of providing for their own wants. Ashes, however, were strewn over the rocks to a depth that left his footprints as distinct as they could have been made in a light snow. Within the crater the same appearances were observed, fully an inch of ashes covering its verdant pastures and the whole garden. This gave Mark very little concern, for he knew that the first rain would wash this drab-looking mantle into the earth, where it would answer all the purposes of a rich dressing of manure.

On reaching the Summit, our young man was enabled to form a better opinion of the vast changes which had been wrought around him, by this sudden elevation of the earth's crust. Everywhere sea seemed to be converted into land, or, at least, into rock. All the white water had disappeared, and in its place arose islands of rock, or mud, or sand. A good deal of the last was to be seen, and some quite near the Reef, as we shall still continue to call the island of the crater. Island, however, it could now hardly be termed. It is true that ribands of water approached it on all sides, resembling creeks, and rivers and small sounds; but, as Mark stood there on the Summit, it seemed to him that it was now possible to walk for leagues, in every direction, commencing at the crater and following the lines of reefs, and rocks, and sands, that had been laid bare by the late upheaving. The extent of this change gave him confidence in its permanency, and the young man had hopes that what had thus been produced by the Providence of God would be permitted to remain, to answer his own benevolent purposes. It certainly made an immense difference in his own situation. The boat could still be used, but it was now possible for him to ramble for hours, if not for days, along the necks, and banks, and hummocks, and swales that had been formed, and that with a dry foot. His limits were so much enlarged as to offer something like a new world to his enterprise and curiosity.

The crater, nevertheless, was apparently about the centre of this new creation. To the south, it is true, the eye could not penetrate more than two or three leagues. A vast, dun-looking cloud, still covered the sea in that direction, veiling its surface far and wide, and mingling with the vapours of the upper atmosphere. Somewhere within this cloud, how far or how near from him he knew not, Mark made no doubt a new outlet to the pent forces of the inner earth was to be found, forming another and an active crater for the exit of the fires beneath. Geology was a science that had not made its present progress in the day of Mark Woolston, but his education had been too good to leave him totally without a theory for what had happened. He supposed that the internal fires had produced so much gas, just beneath this spot, as to open crevices at the bottom of the ocean, through which water had flowed in sufficient quantities to create a vast body of steam, which steam had been the immediate agent of lifting so much of the rock and land, and of causing the earthquake. At the same time, the internal fires had acted in concert; and following an opening, they had got so near the surface as to force a chimney for their own exit, in the form of this new crater, of the existence of which, from all the signs to the southward, Mark did not entertain the smallest doubt.

This theory may have been true, in whole or in part, or it may have been altogether erroneous. Such speculations seldom turn out to be minutely accurate. So many unknown causes exist in so many unexpected forms, as to render precise estimates of their effects, in cases of physical phenomena, almost as uncertain as those which follow similar attempts at any analysis of human motives and human conduct. The man who has been much the subject of the conjectures and opinions of his fellow-creatures, in this way, must have many occasions to wonder, and some to smile, when he sees how completely those around him misjudge his wishes and impulses. Although formed of the same substance, influenced by the same selfishness, and governed by the same passions, in nothing do men oftener err than in this portion of the exercise of their intellects. The errors arise from one man's rigidly judging his fellow by himself, and that which he would do he fancies others would do also. This rule would be pretty safe, could we always penetrate into the wants and longings of others, which quite as often fail to correspond closely with our own, as do their characters, fortunes, and hopes.

At first sight, Mark had a good deal of difficulty in understanding the predominant nature of the very many bodies of water that were to be seen on every side of him. On the whole, there still remained almost as much of one element as of the other, in the view; which of itself, however, was a vast change from what had previously been the condition of the shoals. There were large bodies of water, little lakes in extent, which it was obvious enough must disappear under the process of evaporation, no communication existing between them and the open ocean. But, on the other hand, many of these sheets were sounds, or arms of the sea, that must always continue, since they might be traced, far as eye could reach, towards the mighty Pacific. Such, Mark was induced to believe, was the fact with the belt of water that still surrounded, or nearly surrounded the Reef; for, placed where he was, the young man was unable to ascertain whether the latter had, or had not, at a particular point, any land communication with an extensive range of naked rock, sand, mud, and deposit, that stretched away to the westward, for leagues. In obvious connection with this broad reach of what might be termed bare ground, were Guano and Loam Islands; neither of which was an island any longer, except as it was a part of the whole formation around it. Nevertheless, our young man was not sorry to see that the channel around the Reef still washed the bases of both those important places of deposit, leaving it in his power to transport their valuable manures by means of the raft, or boat.

The situation of the ship next became the matter of Mark's most curious and interested investigation. She was clearly afloat, and the basin in which she rode had a communication on each side, of it, with the sound, or inlet, that still encircled the Reef. Descending to the shore, our young mariner got into the dingui, and pulled out round the vessel, to make a more minute examination. So very limpid was the water of that sea, it was easy enough to discern a bright object on the bottom, at a depth of several fathoms. There were no streams in that part of the world to pour their deposits into the ocean, and air itself is scarce more transparent than the pure water of the ocean, when unpolluted with any foreign substances. All it wants is light, to enable the eye to reach into it's mysteries for a long way. Mark could very distinctly perceive the sand beneath the Rancocus' keel, and saw that the ship still floated two or three feet clear of the bottom. It was near high water, however; and there being usually a tide of about twenty inches, it was plain enough that, on certain winds, the good old craft would come in pretty close contact with the bottom. All expectation of ever getting the vessel out of the basin must now be certainly abandoned, since she lay in a sort of cavity, where the water was six or eight feet deeper than it was within a hundred yards on each side of her.

Having ascertained these facts, Mark provided himself with a fowling-piece, provisions, &c., and set out to explore his newly acquired territories on foot. His steps were first directed to the point where it appeared to the eye, that the vast range of dry land to the westward, extending both north and south, had become connected with the Reef. If such connection existed at all, it was by two very narrow necks of rock, of equal height, both of which had come up out of the water under the late