Origin of Mount Etna. 377 



in a very small degree with tho poetic image of Pindar, who 

 termed Etna " the pillar qfJieaven.''^ But this very flatness of 

 the mountain, of which it is easy to perceive that the represen- 

 tation does not, at the present day, preserve any thing that is 

 imaginary or arbitrary, appears to me destined to become, in 

 the eye of science, one of the most striking features of its form. 

 This flatness, if well analyzed, would of itself be already almost 

 a theory. The sea and the rivers Onobola and Simeto bound 

 nearly completely the mass of Etna. A " falaise"" more or less 

 distinctly developed, marks the circumference of the region 

 round nearly its whole extent. At the summit of the " falaise*' 

 commences a platform which is slightly convex ; and this again 

 is surmounted by a very depressed cone, whose acclivities, which 

 may be termed lateral ialuses, terminate on all sides at the foot 

 of an irregular gibbosity, which forms the mountain properly so 

 called. This latter ce^itral gibbosity is itself truncated by a 

 surface nearly smooth, termed the piano del logo, on which is 

 elevated, like a sugar-loaf, the notched cone that is terminated by 

 the crater of the volcano. The central gibbosity is not a cone, but 

 bears a strong resemblance to the remaining portions of one 

 of which a part had disappeared. Its most massive and elevat- 

 ed portion, surmounted by the piano del logo, presents as it 

 were a trunk, whence, to use the expression of the Canon Recu- 

 pero, branch off two arms slightly curved the one towards the 

 other, which embrace a space having a rude elliptical form, and 

 within whose limits are prolonged the taluses, having their usual 

 inclination and regularity. These two arms are narrow crests 

 almost sharp, sometimes toothed, and whose two declivities are 

 unequal. The exterior declivities, although steep, never form 

 escarpments ; indeed, they rarely attain an inclination of 32° to 

 the horizon. The interior declivities, on the contrary, which 

 face one anothei are abrupt, and often even perpendicular for' 

 heights of several hundred feet. The space which they circum- 

 scribe, and which is called the Val del Bove, is an enclosed am- 

 phitheatre, whence thcie is no view of objects beyond its limits 

 except in the direction of the sea. It is on the flanks of this 

 vast abyss that we see written in indelible characters the history 

 of the commotions which have given to Etna its particular form, 

 and whose meaning it is the object of my memoir to decypher. 



