The Lost Island of Ferdinandea

Once upon a time, in the waters not far off the coast of Sicily, there was an island called Ferdinandea. It was located right where the Mediterranean Sea narrowed between Sicily and Tunisia —a strategic position for any naval power who wished to control traffic in the Mediterranean. A tug-o-war for sovereignty, between four powerful nations, began as soon as the island was discovered, but it didn’t last long. Less than six months later, the island had sunk back into the sea. Now almost two hundred years later, the same territorial squabble is poised to begin again, as Ferdinandea island rises, inch by inch, towards the surface. The story of Ferdinandea island begins on July 1831. It started with a series of tremors and a pungent smell of sulphur. Clearly, somewhere a volcano was erupting. Nothing unusual about that. Sicily is volcanic, and the residents were accustomed to eruptions, big and small. But there were no signs of eruption anywhere on the island. An oil painting depicting the HMS Melville, of the Royal Navy, off the volcanic Ferdinandea Island or Graham Island, 1831. Photo credit: National Maritime Museum A few days later, a large billowing pillar of smoke was seen rising from the sea. At first, the residents thought that a ship was on fire, but when a passing brig approached the area and saw bubbling water and dead fish floating around, the captain was almost sure it was a sea monster. It was two weeks after the first hint of sulphur, that the emergence of a new island was confirmed. Throughout that month of July and the next, the island continued to grow, now a prominent landmark visible from the Sicily coast. And it was still active, spewing lava and hot ash from its mouth-like crater. It eventually reached a height of 63 meters and a circumference of 4.8 km. There was a summit on the northeastern side with a plain in the middle, where two small ponds had formed, the larger of which was 20 meters around and 2 meters deep.