island to claim it for the Bourbon crown. The French Navy made a landing, and called the island Julia. Spain also declared its territorial ambitions. Each wanted the island for its useful position in the Mediterranean trade route (to England and France) and its close position to Spain and Italy. Initial diplomatic disputes In August 1831, the volcano had risen above sea level. Although still only a couple of rocks, the Royal Navy thought it was very suitable as a base to control the traffic in the Mediterranean, as it was closer to the European continent than the island of Malta, a Crown Colony. The British fleet landed, named it Graham Island, after Sir James Graham, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and planted their flag, the Union Jack. The King of Sicily also realized its strategic significance, and dispatched the corvette Etna to claim the new land and dub it Ferdinandea in honour of King Ferdinand II. Last on the scene was Constant Prévost, a co-founder of the French Geological Society, who compared the eruption to a bottle of champagne being uncorked. He named the island Julia, because it was born in July, and probably also in reference to France's July Monarchy. Diplomatic disputes over the island's status ensued. For five months, conflicting claims of sovereignty raged in newspapers and elsewhere as the four different nations vied for control over a roughly piece of basalt. Hopes for development During the island's brief lifespan tourists began to travel to the island to see its two small lakes. Sailors watched it when passing by, and nobles of the House of Bourbon reportedly planned to set up a holiday resort on its beaches. None of these ideas came to fruition, however, as the island soon sank back beneath the waters. By 17 December 1831, officials reported no trace of it. As dynamically as the seamount appeared, it disappeared, defusing the conflict with it. Recent seismic activity After 1863, the volcano lay dormant for many decades, its summit just below sea level. In 2000, renewed seismic activity around Ferdinandea Island led volcanologists to speculate that a new eruptive episode could be imminent, and the seamount might once again become an island. In November 2002 the Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Rome observed minor seismic activity and gas emissions. They put the time of resurfacing at a couple of weeks or months. Italian