a solid simile about five paragraphs in. The narrator is describing to readers what the cupola of the Western American Explorers' Club looks like.

It was shaped like the upper half of the world, from the Equator at its
base to the North Pole at its peal.

A few paragraphs later, readers are told what the loosening of the cupola was like.

The cupola started to loosen somewhat like a tooth does.

Near the end of the same chapter, readers are told about a new type of carriage. The simile given to readers really helps sell the idea that the ride must be unbelievably smooth.

This invention worked like a dream.

The beginning of chapter 3 has a good example of personification when it tells us that the train answers. A moment later, we are told that the train begins to pant.

Chapter 3 also sees the professor describing his balloon and basket. A few metaphors are given to readers that help us picture the shape of things. We are told that the roof of the basket house is shaped in a way that allows it to be "an ideal observation platform." That wasn't the initial intent, but the metaphor helps us picture how flat the roof is. A couple of sentences later, we are told that the basket itself is a "weaver's masterpiece."

I hope you are enjoying this book. It is one of my favorites!  Now, let's look at a few examples of the figurative language you need help with. 

In Chapter III, the red carpet that is to be rolled out for Professor Sherman is "rolled up like a huge jellyroll" (35).  This is a simile because the carpet is being described as "like" something it is not.  Obviously, a carpet is not a jellyroll, but this simile gives us a picture that allows us to see what the carpet looks like when it is rolled up. 

An example of a metaphor in Chapter V is in Mr. F's explanation to Professor Sherman about the effect of taking diamonds off the island. He tells Professor Sherman that this would "cause the diamond market to crash" (74).  Now, a diamond market is a financial market that cannot literally "crash." So this is a metaphor which explains something abstract in terms of something concrete. We can "see" a crash. 

An example of personification may be found in Chapter V, when Professor Sherman is walking with Mr. F. There is volcanic activity on Krakatoa, and Mr. F. is explaining this to Professor Sherman. He tells his audience that the earth begins to shake, "as though this explanation had been a cue for the mountain to perform" (66).  This is personification because the mountain is being described as doing something a person would do, performing, but of course, a mountain cannot perform.

There are many other examples of each literary device in these chapters.  See if you can find some, too.  Good luck! 

A simile is a comparison that uses "like" or "as" to connect two different objects or ideas. These are some of the easiest comparisons to spot, as you can look to those two words as markers. William Pene du Bois uses this type of comparison to describe the island’s volcano, as Sherman and the children fly over it in the Merry-Go-Round:

It was like looking into a horrible pit full of elephants (124).

In fact, this page also contains an example of personification, which applies human characteristics to non-human entities:

There was a thick gray smoke crawling around inside (124).

Smoke does not literally crawl or have the ability to crawl, as this is a human function. Assigning this term to the smoke indicates its speed and behavior in order to create the image in the reader's mind.

A metaphor is also a comparison, but it compares two objects directly, without using “like” or “as.” These are less easy to spot, and are often used for more dramatic effect.

When Professor Sherman says on page 79 that “This was all an unbelievable dream—to think of finding such a building on a small island in the Pacific,” he is not telling his audience that he was literally dreaming. He is spending the entirety of the text attempting to prove to them that his experiences were, in fact, real. Comparing them to a dream communicates to his audience that this experience was a magical one.

A personification in Chapter VI occurs when there is a description of what happens to Mr. M during his first time on the island, describing him as:

...being thrashed by the bending trees and wind-shipped underbrush...(81)

The thrashing is personification because trees do not thrash people, but this is an intentional action that a person might perform. The trees "bending" could be considered a personification for the same reason.

One metaphor in Chapter VI can be found when Mr. F begins to relate the history of the families on Krakatoa and says:

Upon seening the mines, we all became rather piggish (84).

To describe people as piggish is a metaphor because people are not pigs, but when they are being greedy, since we perceive pigs to have the quality of greediness, this gives the reader a picture of a particular characteristic to describe the people when they first discover the diamonds.

In Chapter VII, there is a wonderful simile, describing the dining room in Mr. M's house, when the tables begin to rise: 

...[T]hen these disks started to rise slowly like some nightmarish garden of mushroom...(103).

A simile is a comparison that uses the word "like," as opposed to a metaphor, which says something "is" something, not simply "like" something. 

There are plenty of other personifications, metaphors, and similes throughout the book.