CHAPTER XXVII.OXENDEN PREACHES A SERMON.
“Magones,” said the doctor, “is clearly a volcanic island, and, taken in connection with the other volcanoes around, shows how active must be the subterranean fires at the South Pole. It seems probable to me that the numerous caves of the Kosekin were originally fissures in the mountains, formed by convulsions of nature; and also that the places excavated by man must consist of soft volcanic rock, such as pumice-stone, or rather tufa, easily worked, and remaining permanently in any shape into which it may be fashioned. As to Magones, it seems another Iceland; for there are the same wild and hideous desolation, the same impassable wilderness, and the same universal scenes of ruin, lighted up by the baleful and tremendous volcanic fires.”
“But what
