This I afterwards ascertained beyond doubt to be a metalloid
alloy whereof the principal ingredient was aluminium, or some
substance so closely resembling it as not to be distinguishable from
it by simple chemical tests. A friend to whom I submitted a small
portion broken off from the rest expressed no doubt that it was a kind
of aluminium bronze, but inclined to believe that it contained no
inconsiderable proportion of a metal with which chemists are as yet
imperfectly acquainted; perhaps, he said, silicon; certainly something
which had given to the alloy a hardness and tenacity unknown to any
familiar metallurgical compound.
"This," said my friend, opening the volume, "is a manuscript which was
contained in this case when I took it from among the debris of the
crater. I should have told you that I found there what I believed to
be fragments of human flesh and bone, but so crushed and mangled that
I could form no positive conclusion. My next care was to escape from
the island, which I felt sure lay far from the ordinary course of
merchant vessels. A boat which had brought me ashore--the smaller of
the two belonging to the ship--had fortunately been left on the end of
the island furthest from that on which the vessel had been driven, and
had, owing to its remoteness, though damaged, not been fatally injured
by the shock.
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