“Could there be fire on board?” I asked myself. I was leaving the saloon, when Captain Nemo entered; he approached the thermometer, consulted it, and, turning to me, said: “Forty-two degrees.” “I have noticed it, Captain,” I replied; “and if it gets much hotter we cannot bear it.” “Oh, sir, it will not get hotter if we do not wish it.” “You can reduce it as you please, then?” “No; but I can go farther from the stove which produces it.” “It is outward, then!” “Certainly; we are floating in a current of boiling water.” “Is it possible!” I exclaimed. “Look.” The panels opened, and I saw the sea entirely white all round. A sulphurous smoke was curling amid the waves, which boiled like water in a copper. I placed my hand on one of the panes of glass, but the heat was so great that I quickly took it off again. “Where are we?” I asked. “Near the Island of Santorin, sir,” replied the Captain. “I wished to give you a sight of the curious spectacle of a submarine eruption.” “I thought,” said I, “that the formation of these new islands was ended.” “Nothing is ever ended in the volcanic parts of the sea,” replied Captain Nemo; “and the globe is always being worked by subterranean fires. Already, in the nineteenth year of our era, according to Cassiodorus and Pliny, a new island, Theia (the divine), appeared in the very place where these islets have recently been formed.