That afternoon Mark made all his preparations for a voyage that he felt might be one of great moment to him.  All the symptoms of convulsions in the earth, however, had ceased; even the rumbling sounds which he had heard, or imagined, in the stillness of the night, being no longer audible.  From that source, therefore, he had no great apprehensions of danger; though there was a sort of dread majesty in the exhibition of the power of nature that he had so lately witnessed, which disposed him to approach the scene of its greatest effort with secret awe.  So much did he think of the morrow and its possible consequences, that he did not get asleep for two or three hours, though he awoke in the morning unconscious of any want of rest.  An hour later, he was in his boat, and under way.

Mark had now to steer in an entirely new direction, believing, from what he had seen while aloft the day before, that he could make his way out into the open ocean by proceeding a due south course.  In order to do this, and to get into the most promising-looking channel in that direction, he was obliged to pass through the narrow strait that separated the Reef from the large range of rock over which he had roamed the day succeeding the earthquake.  Of course, the bridge was removed, in order to allow the boat’s mast to pass; but for this, Mark did not care.  He had seen his stock the previous evening, and saw that it wanted for nothing.  Even the fowls had gone across to the new territory, on exploring expeditions; and Kitty herself had left her sweet pastures on the Summit, to see of what the world was made beyond her old range.  It is true she had made one journey in that quarter, in the company, of her master; but, one journey no more satisfied her than it would have satisfied the curiosity of any other female.

After passing the bridge, the boat entered a long narrow reach, that extended at least two leagues, in nearly a direct line towards Vulcan’s Peak.  As it approached the end of this piece of water, Mark saw that he must enter a bay of considerable extent; one, indeed, that was much larger than any he had yet seen in his island, or, to speak more accurately, his group of islands.  On one side of this bay appeared a large piece of level land, or a plain, which Mark supposed, might cover one or two thousand acres.  Its colour was so different from anything he had yet seen, that our young man was induced to land, and to walk a short distance to examine it.  On reaching its margin, it was found to be a very shallow basin, of which the bottom was mud, with a foot or two of salt water still remaining, and in which sea weed, some ten or twelve inches in thickness, was floating.  It was almost possible for Mark to walk on this weed, the green appearance of which induced him to name the place the Prairie.  Such a collection of weed could only have been owing to the currents, which must have brought it into this basin, where it was probably retained even previously to the late eruption.  The presence of the deposit of mud, as well as the height of the surrounding rocks, many of which were doubtless out of water previously to the phenomenon, went to corroborate this opinion.