Mr Siinond on the Large Chestnut of' Mount jEtna. 315 



singular prudence and sure-footedness of our cattle to get 

 through without accident. On the way we had occasion to ob- 

 serve melancholy traces of the earthquake of February last, 

 particularly at the village of Zafarana, where the falling of 

 the arched roof of the church crushed the curate and forty-one 

 of his parishioners, only nine of whom were extricated alive ; 

 not a woman among the sufferers, for they had attended church 

 in the morning, and the evening service had been performed 

 on purpose for the men who had been out at work during the 

 whole of that day. We saw a parcel of children playing with 

 great glee among the ruins, and observed young women be- 

 comingly adjusting their black veils to please the living, al- 

 ready unmindful of the dead. 



The lava of the great eruption of the first year of the 96th 

 Olympiad, which formed the promontory of Aci in the sea, is 

 still bare of soil, and without vegetation in many places, while 

 that of 1669 is already covered with vines and fruit trees. 

 The fact is, that compact lava is scarcely more liable to decom- 

 position than any hard rock, and that scoriae only are liable to 

 decomposition ; the lava of 1669 probably abounded with sco- 

 riae. The promontory of Aci above mentioned, is 900 feet 

 high, but far from being all formed by the lava of one erup- 

 tion ; the traces of as many as nine are observed one over the 

 other, with argillaceous earth intervening. 



The astonishing fertility of the soil all over the base of 

 JEtna^ and the luxuriant growth of all the plants, prepared us 

 in some sort for the miracle of vegetation which we were about 

 to behold ; and when the Castagvto di Cento Cavalli actually 

 appeared before us, it seemed to make no very great figure, but 

 on near inspection we were truly amazed. 



Recupero says that he had the ground dug all round, and 

 found a continuity of roots and even bark. 



The present appearance is certainly that of a group of five 

 large trees, one only of which is sound and covered with bark 

 all round, while the others are decayed on the inward side, 

 each of them appearing to be sections of a circumference small- 

 er than the great one of 112 feet, which they all five with 

 their intervals form together. Taken outside the bulging roots, 

 that circumference might be reckoned at 180. The limbs, al- 



