Mount Etna

“ Alas! art is extinct here; the wonders of nature alone remain; and it was with vast pleasure I observed those of mount Etna, whose flame appears very bright in the night many leagues off at sea, and fills the head with a thousand conjectures. However, I honour philosophy too much, to imagine it could turn that of Empedocles ”

“ Mount Etna, one of the most majestic of all the volcanoes, which the ancients considered as one of the highest mountains in the world, and on the summit of which they believed that Deucalion and Pyrrha sought refuge, to save themselves from the universal deluge, is situated on the plain of Catania, in Sicily. ”

“ From the observations I have made upon Mount Etna, Vesuvius, and its neighbourhood, [Pg 92] I dare say, that, after a careful examination, most mountains, that are or have been Volcanos, would be found to owe their existence to subterraneous fire; the direct reverse of what I find the commonly received opinion.
Nature, though varied, is certainly in general uniform in her operations; and I cannot conceive that two such considerable Volcanos as Etna and Vesuvius should have been formed otherwise than every other considerable Volcano of the known world. ”

“ This also was probably drawn from the imagination; no one who has ever seen the mountain would recognise it, for it has a small base, and sides which rival the Matterhorn in abruptness. Over against the coast of Sicily, and near the mountain, is written:—"Mount Etna, or Mount Gibello. This mountain sometimes issues out pure flame, and at other times a thick smoak with ashes; streams of fire run down with great quantities of burning stones, and has made many eruptions." ”

“ The city of Catania was greatly injured by an eruption of Mount Etna in 1669, and almost destroyed by the earthquake of 1693, when most of the inhabitants were buried under the ruins of their houses and churches. But it rose rapidly, and now has a population of seventy thousand. It is regularly and handsomely built, and the streets are paved with the lava of Mount Etna. ”

“ There are two cities, Catania and Aci Reale, and sixty-two towns or villages on Mount Etna. It is far more thickly populated than any other part of Sicily or Italy, for while the population of the former is 228 per square mile, and of the latter 233, the population of the habitable zone of Etna amounts to 1,424 per square mile. ”

“ Of course not," consulting the pages, "it's Taormina."
"Is that in Sicily?" he asked.
"Yes. Listen to what Mr. Watson says: 'I'm told it is the most beautiful spot in the world, which is the same thing you hear about most beautiful places. It is eight hundred feet above the Mediterranean and nestles peacefully in the shadow of Mount Etna.'"
"Etna!" cried Uncle John, with a start. "Isn't that another volcano?"
"To be sure," said Beth, the geographer. "Etna is the biggest volcano in the world."
"Does it spout?" he asked, anxiously.
"All the time, they say. But it is not usually dangerous." ”

“ EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA.
A DRAMATIC POEM.
PERSONS.
Empedocles.
Pausanias, a Physician.
Callicles, a young Harp-player.
The Scene of the Poem is on Mount Etna; at first in the forest region, afterwards on the summit of the mountain.
ACT I.
Scene I.—Morning. A Pass in the forest region of Etna.
CALLICLES (alone, resting on a rock by the path) .
The mules, I think, will not be here this hour:
They feel the cool wet turf under their feet
By the stream-side, after the dusty lanes
In which they have toiled all night from Catana,
And scarcely will they budge a yard. ”

“ Only two hundred years ago an eruption of Mount Etna took place, and 27,000 people were buried by the lava. We saw where the stream had rushed down from the crater through part of the town, and far into the sea—almost a mile in width, and thirty miles from its source, bearing destruction to everything in its course, and yet to-day fine new houses stand upon the cold lava, and away up and along the sides of the volcano for miles are to be seen cottages clustering thickly together, the inmates busily engaged in cultivating their vineyards. ”

“ The principal mountain chain of Sicily skirts the North and a portion of the North-eastern coast, and would appear to be a prolongation of the Apennines. An inferior group passes through the centre of the island, diverging towards the South, as it approaches the East coast. Between the two ranges, and completely [Pg 2] separated from them by the valleys of the Alcantara and the Simeto, stands the mighty mass of Mount Etna, which rises in solitary grandeur from the eastern sea-board of the island. Volcanoes, by the very mode of their formation, are frequently completely isolated ”

“ The mountain is clad with verdure except where the surface of the lava is too compact to be penetrated by the roots of plants. Only the highest regions, which are covered with snow during the greater part of the year, are barren. It is {315} a remarkable fact that the flora of the Alps should not be met with on Mount Etna, although the temperature suits it exactly.
Formerly the volcano was surrounded by a belt of forests occupying the zone between the cultivated lands and the region of snow and cinders. ”

“ I had been so much occupied since my residence in this island, as to be prevented from joining any of the numerous parties of last year. Thus I began to be very apprehensive that I might labour under the reproach of residing near two years in Sicily without beholding one of the most stupendous objects of nature—the greatest of volcanoes. But the history of my ascent to Mount Etna must be suspended sine die.
We were fortunate in finding the crater in an incessant state of fiery eruption—tremendous indeed! It threw out red stones very near us. The guide was alarmed. ”

“ As it happened, I chanced to be on the Island when all this occurred and not only on the Island, but in the very city of Messina. For days Mount Etna had been throwing out huge volumes of black and yellow smoke and occasionally great bowlders would be seen flying up with the smoke, followed by tremblings of the earth for many miles around. The smoke increased in volume, the rumbling and trembling of the earth became more severe with each earthquake and two or three small cone-shaped holes appeared on its sides through which molten lava poured forth like rivers of fire. ”

“ We therefore only ascended to the top of what is called Monte Rossi, the volcano that destroyed Catania in 1669, and covered the country with lava for thirty or forty miles.
The summit of Mount Etna is always covered with snows. Before we returned we found that the snow-storm had commenced, and rejoiced that we had escaped. At the height we attained we lost sight of all vegetation, nothing being visible but lava, cinders, and ashes. ”

“ The quantity of matter thrown out by this eruption is greater than that of the last in the year 1760; but the damage [Pg 14] to the cultivated lands is not so considerable, owing to its having spread itself much more, and its source being at least three miles higher up. This eruption seems now to have exhausted itself; and I expect in a few days to see Vesuvius restored to its former tranquillity.
Mount Etna in Sicily broke out on the 27th of April; and made a lava, in two branches, at least six miles in length, and a mile in breadth ”

“ The pyramidal shadow of the mountain reached across the whole island, and far into the sea on the other side. I counted from hence forty-four little mountains (little I call them in comparison of their mother Etna, though they would appear great any where else) in the middle region on the Catania side, and many others on the other side of the mountain, all of a conical form, and each having its crater; many with timber trees flourishing both within and without their craters. ”

“ Till now, the ascent had been so gradual (for the top of Etna is not less than thirty miles from Catania, from whence the ascent begins) as not to have been the least fatiguing; and if it had not been for the snow, we might have rode upon our mules to the very foot of the little mountain, higher than which the Canon our guide had never been: but as I saw that this little mountain was composed in the same manner as the top of Vesuvius, which, notwithstanding the smoak issuing from every pore, is solid and firm, I made no scruple of going up to the edge of the crater ”

“ As the lavas of Etna are very commonly fifteen and twenty miles in length, six or seven in breadth, and fifty feet or more in depth; you may judge, Sir, of the prodigious quantities of matter emitted in a great eruption of this mountain, and of the vast cavities there must necessarily be within its bowels. The most extensive lavas of Vesuvius do not exceed seven miles in length. The operations of nature on the one mountain and the other are certainly the same ”

“ After having passed the morning of the 25th in these observations, we proceeded through the second or middle region of [Pg 68] Etna, called La Selvosa, the woody, than which nothing can be more beautiful. On every side are mountains, or fragments of mountains, that have been thrown up by various ancient explosions; there are some near as high as Mount Vesuvius; one in particular (as the Canon our guide assured me, having measured it) is little less than one mile in perpendicular height, and five in circumference at its basis. ”

“ There is no sign of a crater on the top of this mountain, which rises almost to a sharp point: time, and other accidents, may be reasonably supposed to have worn away this distinctive mark of its having been formed by explosion, as I have seen to be the case in other mountains, formed evidently by explosion, on the flanks of Etna and Vesuvius. Strabo, in his 5th book, upon the subject of this island, quotes Timæus, as having said, that, a little before his time, a mountain in the middle of Pithecusa, called Epomeus, was shook by an earthquake, and vomited flames. ”

“ Catania, so often destroyed by eruptions of Etna, and totally overthrown by an earthquake towards the end [Pg 59] of the last century [19] , has been re-built within these fifty years, and is now a considerable town, with at least thirty-five thousand inhabitants. I do not wonder at the seeming security with which these parts are inhabited, having been so long witness to the same near Mount Vesuvius. The operations of Nature are slow: great eruptions do not frequently happen ”

“ The natural historians may perhaps reasonably say, that the wise poets meant no more by giants, than exhalations, shut up in the bowels of the earth, which, not finding a free passage, open one by their own force and impulse, and form mountains, as those which occasioned this eruption have been seen to do; and methought I saw those torrents of burning smoak that Pindar describes in an eruption of Etna, now called Mon Gibello, in Sicily; in imitation of [Pg 132] which, as some say, Virgil wrote these lines ”

“ It is accurate, and at the same time very clear and intelligible. By reference to the map it will be seen that from Capo di Schiso westward, to near Paterno, Etna is surrounded by sandstone hills; at the south we have recent clays, and, at intervals, chalk. A large triangular space having the two angles [Pg 118] at its base, respectively near Maletto and Aderno, and its apex at the great crater, is covered with new lava; while around Nicolosi there is volcanic sand. ”

“ Etna is situated on the island of Sicily, immediately southwest of Italy. It is a much larger mountain than Vesuvius, rising, as it does, from a circular base about eighty-seven miles around, to a height of 10,840 feet above the level of the Mediterranean. It forms a conspicuous object when seen either from the Mediterranean, or from distant parts of Italy.
The height of Etna is so great that its slopes can be divided into three distinct climatic zones or belts. The lowest of these lies between the sea and a height of 2,500 feet. ”

“ The cone of Etna is, in a right line, about a mile in ascent. The crater is about a mile and a half in circumference; and from the inner part of this, a column of smoke constantly rises; while the liquid fiery matter may be seen rolling, rising and falling within. As to the vastness and beauty of the prospect from the summit of Etna, all writers agree that it is probably unsurpassed. M. Houel was there at sunrise, when the horizon was perfectly clear, and the coast of Calabria, as seen in the distance, appeared to the eye misty, and undistinguishable from the sea. ”

“ Vesuvius, Stromboli, and even Hekla pour the lava over their craters, just as wine spills over a too-full glass; Etna does not give itself this trouble. Its crater is only a crater for show, which is content to play cup and ball with incandescent rocks large as ordinary houses, which one follows in their aërial ascension as one would follow a bomb issuing from a mortar; but, during this time the force of the eruption is really felt elsewhere. In reality, when Etna is at work, it throws up very simply upon its shoulders, at one place or another, a kind of boil about the size of Montmartre ”

“ That the population is rapidly increasing is well shown by a comparison of the number of inhabitants of some of the more important towns in 1824 and in 1876. [15]
[Pg 34] The general aspect of Etna is that of a pretty regular cone, covered with vegetation, except near the summit. The regularity is broken on the East side by a slightly oval valley, four or five miles in diameter, called the Val del Bove, or in the language of the district Val del Bue. This commences about two miles from the summit, and is bounded on three sides by nearly vertical precipices from 3,000 to 4,000 feet in height. ”

“ How much more exciting and sublime than anything a monotonous plain presents! I have skirted the base of Etna, clothed in the luxuriant verdure of a favoured clime, and looked upon its summit, wreathed in a mantle of perpetual snow, while the smoke from its crater gracefully curled above it. ”