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Crater, The
The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Crater, by James Fenimore Cooper
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Title: The Crater
Author: James Fenimore Cooper
Release Date: March 14, 2004 [eBook #11573]
Language: English
Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
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THE CRATER
Or, Vulcan's Peak
A Tale of the Pacific.
By J. Fenimore Cooper.
1863
"Thus arise Races of living things, glorious in strength And perish, as the quickening breath of God Fills them, or is withdrawn."--_Bryant._
Complete In One Volume
Preface.
The reader of this book will very naturally be disposed to ask the question, why the geographies, histories, and other works of a similar character, have never made any mention of the regions and events that compose its subject. The answer is obvious enough, and ought to satisfy every mind, however "inquiring." The fact is, that the authors of the different works to which there is any allusion, most probably never heard there were any such places as the Reef, Rancocus Island, Vulcan's Peak, the Crater, and the other islands of which so much is said in our pages. In other words, they knew nothing about them.
We shall very freely admit that, under ordinary circumstances, it would be prima facie evidence against the exi