The Secret of the Island

The Secret of the Island is given as a translation from Jules Verne. The introduction says the book was another of the series of Voyages Extraordinaires which ran through a famous Paris magazine for younger readers, the Magasin Illustré. The text says that, taken separately, the book may be counted as next to Robinson Crusoe and possibly Treasure Island, the best read and the best appreciated book in all that large group of island-tales and sea-stories.

A passage about a ship has Neb and Pencroft put off their departure, and Ayrton saying It is not the Duncan, it could not be her. Cyrus Harding observes that the creatures, both birds and quadrupeds, are more timid than formerly, and says the woods have therefore been recently traversed by the convicts, and that traces will certainly be found. A passage about a lake says the stream of lava, fed from an inexhaustible source, rolled on without ceasing new waves of incandescent matter, and that the first waves of lava which fell in the lake immediately solidified.