THE BIRTH OF A SICILIAN VOLCANO. 583 



with the red, yellow, and white products of the solfatara. But the 

 richest volcanic colors are seen in a solfatara opening in an emi- 

 nence on the outer and southern side of the volcano. An explosion 

 has laid bare a vertical wall above a mysterious opening, and from 

 this opening different gases have passed out and coated the walls 

 with yellow, white, orange, red, and violet incrustations; these 

 hues are remarkably bright and are enhanced by the setting of 

 ebony which surrounds them. 



" The inundations of lava poured out from a series of pits or 

 boccJie difuogo situated in a line below the cone, on the rent from 

 which escaped all that overflowed from Etna in 188G. They are 

 empty monticles, which have the appearance of having been 

 formed of burned coke. They are two, three, and ten metres 

 high, and it is difficult to believe, on looking at them, that they 

 could have given birth to this immense sea of lava which has 

 climbed cones thirty to forty metres high, and which rises with a 

 formidable hill in its middle. 



" All this coke which we see is not lava, it is only slag. But 

 this slag, these scoria?, cover everything up, though it would not 

 have been visible had there not been a deep excavation along the 

 course of the lava stream, next to the pits. This great ravine, 

 nearly a kilometre in length, thirty to fifty metres in width, and 

 from four to twelve metres deep, with vertical walls, enabled us 

 to see the internal structure of a lava stream. It is formed by the 

 superposition of alternating layers of compact lava, a yard thick, 

 with black ashes. In certain places we could count five or six 

 layers, one over the other. 



" It appears, then, that the lava stream, itself the result of the 

 eruption, is formed of sheets of lava, which flow out one after the 

 other and pass one above the other, each covering the scoriae, or 

 rather a part of the scorise of the surface of the preceding layer, 

 without filling the interstices. But while layers of ashes or scoriae 

 only ten to twenty inches thick separate the lava layers, the sides 

 and ends of the lava streams form great heaps of large pieces of 

 loose coke, amid which one can detect the compact lava." 



We had left our mules some distance down the mountain, and, 

 while the guide went for them, as we were to return by a diff'erent 

 route, I strolled about, enjoying the wondrously beautiful scene 

 far below. A gentle sirocco was blowing, and far down beyond 

 the fields of ashes and cinders a soft, delicate haze hung over the 

 land of the vine and oi:ange, and spread over the deep blue Medi- 

 terranean beyond. 



We returned to Nicolosi in the hot afternoon sun, passing 

 around by the south of Monte Rosso, skirting the right side of 

 the eastern lava stream, whose entire length was about four miles, 

 and whose rough, broken surface is so well represented by the 



