298 Supposed Connection of Volcanic Emanations 



seemed to take place immediately after the action of some 

 volcano near or distant.* 



In the Bulletin of the French Geographical Society there is 

 an article on an eruption of Etna, which took place on the 16th 

 of May, 1830. This eruption was of a frightful character; 

 no less than eight villages having been destroyed by the lava 

 and ejected materials. The calamity is described as more 

 terrible, unexpected, and general, than was ever known. Now, 

 this eruption was attended by a consequence which I shall 

 adduce as an example of the above position. It is stated 

 that the coast of Calabria, and all the ports of Italy which 

 were exposed to the wind which blew during that disastrous 

 night, were covered with a reddish dust, in some slight measure 

 like that which covers the neighbourhood of the mountain. 

 This dust was, of course, attributed by some persons to the 

 eruption ; but letters from Palermo state that it was observed 

 throughout Italy, and that, its principal deposition being in 

 the south of Sicily, it must have been brought by a south 

 wind, and therefore could not have proceeded from Etna: 

 analysis, moreover, contradicts its claim to a volcanic origin. 

 It is known that a similar dust fell in 1807 and 1813 ; and that, 

 at those epochs, frightful storms, raised in the deserts of Africa, 

 caused a whirlwind of sand, which, borne across the sea by the 

 sirocco, was deposited on the shores of Sicily and Italy. In 

 the present case, also, there is distinct evidence, in accounts 

 received from Africa, that, during the month of May (while 

 Etna was in eruption), a caravan perished in the desert under 

 a whirlwind of sand; and, therefore, it is not unduly con- 

 cluded, that the red sand before alluded to was borne from 

 the plains of Africa by the south-east wind which blew 

 during the eruption, and carried across the Mediterranean 

 to the shores of Italy. Nor is it, if this fact be allowed im- 

 partial consideration, an extravagant idea, that hurricanes 

 in the West Indies, or typhoons in the China seas f, may be 

 in some measure connected with the outbreak of some vol- 

 canic eruption, in those archipelagos of burning mountains. 

 The next step in the argument is, that the cold air from more 

 distant countries would, in rushing forwards to produce the 

 equilibrium, occasion the occurrence of partial or general 

 storms ; always making due allowance for the prevalence 



* Dr. Daubeny has some observations on the connection of hurricanes 

 with volcanoes and earthquakes. (Vide Description of Volcanoes, p. 321. 

 and p. 303.) 



•j- The eruption of St. Vincent's, in 1718, was attended by a hurricane; 

 that in 1812 was preceded by earthquakes for a year; and that of Sum- 

 bawa, in 1815, by a hurricane which did great injury. 



