These islands are exposed to earthquakes and storms, like the continents, and occasionally a devastating wave sweeps across the land. During the heavier gales the natives sometimes secure their houses by tying them to the cocoa-nut trees, or to a stake planted for the purpose. A height of ten or twelve feet, the elevation of their land, is easily overtopped by the more violent seas; and great damage is sometimes experienced. The still more extensive earthquake waves, such as those which have swept up the coast of Spain, Peru, and the Sandwich Islands, would produce a complete deluge over these islands.—(United States' Exploring Expedition.—Geology.—By James Dana, p. 75.)
[30] There are a few islands better supplied with vegetable food, though the above statements are literally true of a large majority.
Biographical Notice of Leopold Pilla, the Geologist.
By H. Coquand.[31]
Communicated by the Author.
Again, to bring to your recollection the numerous works which have placed Pilla among the most eminent geologists of Italy, is to do honour to the memory of an associate, whose recent loss we lament, by bestowing well-merited praises on the greatness of mind in a citizen, who nobly sacrificed a life already illustrious, and which the future promised to render still more so, to the good of his country. Yes, Italy has always been tellus magna virum! The chances of war, the rage of civil discord, the insults of foreign domination, may have eclipsed its political name, but they could not extinguish its genius. The blast of revolutions has respected the triple halo with which the sciences, letters, and the arts, have adorned its brow. By entrusting to one of his friends the task of enumerating his scientific labours, the Society imposes on him a very painful duty; but he undertakes it with feeling and gratitude; for the public homage rendered to the virtues of those whom we have loved, seems to bring them back to us, and softens the awards of destiny, which has too soon snatched them from us.
Leopold Pilla was born in the kingdom of Naples. While still young, the exciting scenes of Vesuvius attracted his attention, and determined his scientific career. In 1832, he undertook to write the annals of this volcano, and gave its history in two periodical collections.[32] It was at this period that he proved the production of flames in volcanic eruptions, and deduced from thence the ingenious conclusions which you judged worthy of a place in your memoirs.[33] This remarkable work, which of itself would have been sufficient to establish his scientific reputation, was soon followed by numerous others, which shed a new lustre on his name. The study of the extinct volcano of Rocca Monfina,[34] in the Campania, illustrated the theory of craters de soulevement, and enriched it with facts of the highest importance.
With a mind at once philosophical and cultivated, he was able to generalise and describe, to unite erudition with good taste, and to treat questions of deepest science with that grace and picturesqueness of style, which renders them popular without detracting from their accuracy. His love for geology amounted to enthusiasm; he was therefore so zealous in propagating his views, that certain jealous minds could not pardon him, and led him to atone for his fault, by a voluntary exile. The apostle of the science, he likewise was its martyr; thus nothing was wanting to his fame. It is the privilege of men of genius to be persecuted. Obliged to yield to the storm, Pilla left Naples, but by his writings he belonged to Italy at large; and the unanimous acclamation which greeted him in the chair formerly occupied by Galileo, conferred on him by the liberality of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, formed at once his triumph and revenge.
Besides the works mentioned, we owe to him a Mineralogical Treatise on Rocks;[35] an Introduction to the Study of Mineralogy;[36] and a Geological Itinerary from Naples to Vienna.[37] Thus, by approving the new productions which his activity produced, and which caused him to be better appreciated by the nation which had adopted him, the Tuscans had only to sanction the judgment they had already given of our savant, founded on his reputation and works.
Pilla left his heart at Naples. That city contained all the objects of his affections—a father, who had guided his first attempts in the field of science, and his family—a classical soil which had revealed to him the secret of its revolutions, a majestic landscape, which he could not find among the monotonous plains of Pisa, and above all his own Vesuvius. It was in this way that he recalled to his mind the mountain which had been the subject of his daily study, and from whose summit nature presented herself to his eyes in the most striking contrasts, revealing to his view its subterranean convulsions, connected with the delightful picture of the Gulf of Baia. All his thoughts brought him back to Naples. When, from the height of the terraces of Campiglia our view extended from the peaks of Mount Amiata to the banks of the Popolonia, and from the Tuscan Archipelago to the distant horizons of Corsica and Sardinia, my poor friend often interrupted our reveries by saying,—“It is almost as beautiful as Naples, but my Vesuvius is wanting;” and then adding, “How unfortunate it is that Werner did not lay the foundation of geology at Naples; he would have made it Plutonian.” Thus the love of his country, and the recollection of its wonders, were confounded in his mind with the cultivation of the science, and gave to his animated and poetical conversation a touching melancholy which agreeably tempered his vivacity.
During the years of his professorship at Pisa, Pilla published, in succession, a comparative Essay on the formations which compose the soil of Italy;[38] a Collection of the Mineral riches of Tuscany;[39] two Memoirs on the Etrurian Formation;[40] History of an Earthquake felt in Tuscany, in 1846;[41] many notices respecting the Calcare-rosso, and on the temperature observed in the wells of Monte-Massi;[42] lastly, the first volume of his Treatise on Geology.[43] The entire work would have formed four octavo volumes. The materials were prepared, but death left the work incomplete. As these various writings are in the hands of all geologists, we give no analysis of them; which indeed would only be a faint reflection from the pictures present to your memory. I may merely say, that the elevated considerations of the general physics of the globe to which he has risen in appreciating and investigating the causes of earthquakes, the comprehensive and methodical plan on which he has projected this geological treatise, by affording us a proof of the fertility and maturity of his mind, shew us, at the same time, the importance of the part reserved for a philosopher, whom death has removed from the present scene before he had reached his thirty-sixth year.