In part, as we have said elsewhere in this work, all oceanic islands, remote from those in the shoal bordering waters of the continents, have been of volcanic or coral formation, or more often a combination of the two.  No sooner does an island mass appear above or near the surface of tropical waters than the minute coral animals—­effective only by their myriads—­begin their labors, building fringes of coral rock around the cindery heaps lifted from the ocean floor.  The atolls of the Pacific—­circular or oval rings of coral with lagunes of sea-water within—­have long been thought to be built on the rims of submarine volcanoes, rising to within a few hundred feet of the surface, much as coral reefs around actual islands.  If the volcanic mass should subsequently subside, as it is likely to do, the minute ocean builders will continue their work—­unless the subsidence be too rapid for their powers of production—­and in this way ring-like islands of coral may in time rise from great depths of sea, their basis being the volcanic island which has sunk from near the surface far toward old ocean’s primal floor.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Mud Volcanoes, Geysers, and Hot Springs.

Our usual impression of a volcano is indicated in the title of “burning mountain,” so often employed, a great fire-spouting cone of volcanic debris, from which steam, lava, rock-masses, cinder-like fragments, and dust, often of extreme fineness, are flung high into the air or flow in river-like torrents of molten rock.  This, no doubt, applies in the majority of cases, but the volcanic forces do not confine themselves to these magnificent displays of energy, nor are their products limited to those above specified.  We have seen that mud is a not uncommon product, due to the mingling of water with volcanic dust, while water alone is occasionally emitted, of which we have a marked instance in the Volcan de Agua, of Guatemala, already mentioned.  As regards mud flows, we may specially instance the first outflow from Mont Pelee, that by which the Guerin sugar works were overwhelmed.

The imprisoned forces of the earth have still other modes of manifestation.  A very frequent one of these, and the most destructive to human life of them all, is the earthquake.

Minor manifestations of volcanic action may be seen in the geyser and the hot spring, the latter the most widely disseminated of all the resultant effects of the heated condition of the earth’s interior.  It is these displays of subterranean energy, differing from those usually termed volcanic, yet due to the same general causes, that we have next to consider.  And it may be premised that their manifestations, while, except in the case of the earthquake, less violent, are no less interesting, especially as the minor displays are free from that peril to human life which renders the major ones so terrible.

While the largest volcanoes at times pour out rivers of liquid mud, there are volcanoes from which nothing is ever ejected but mud and water, the latter being generally salt.  From this circumstance they are sometimes called salses, but they are more generally termed mud-volcanoes.  Some varieties of them throw out little else than gases of different sorts, and these are called air-volcanoes.