ISLAND

, or Isle, a tract of dry land encompassed by water; whether by the sea, a river, or lake, &c. In which sense Island stands contradistinguished from Continent, or terra firma; like Great Britain, Ireland, Jersey, Sicily, Minorca, &c.

Some naturalists imagine that Islands were formed at the deluge: others think they have been rent and separated from the continent by violent storms, inundations, and earthquakes; while others are thrown up by volcanoes, or otherwise grow or emerge from the sea.

Varenius thinks most of these opinions true in some instances, and believes that there have been Islands produced each of these ways. St. Helena, Ascension, and other steep rocky Islands, he supposes have become so, by the sea's overflowing their neighbouring champaigns. By the heaping up huge quantities of sand &c, he thinks the Islands of Zealand, Japan, &c, were formed: Sumatra and Ceylon, and most of the East India Islands, he rather thinks were rent off from the main land, as England probably was from France. It is also certain that some have emerged from the bottom of the sea; as Santorini formerly, and three other Isles near it lately; the last in 1707, which rose from the bottom of the sea, after an earthquake<*> the ancients had a tradition that Delos rose from the| bottom of the sea; and Seneca observes that the Island Therasia rose out of the Ægean sea in his time, of which the mariners were eye witnesses; as they have been within these 10 years, in the sea between Norway and Iceland, where an Island has just emerged. The late circumnavigators too have made it probable, that many of the South-sea Islands have had their foundations, of coral rock, gradually increasing, and growing out of the sea.