310 Contributions to Physical Geographic . 



Aet. XVIIL- — Contributions to Physical Geography. 

 1. Account of' the Eruptions of Mount uEtna.* By L. Simond. 



It seems probable that in Homer's time ^Etna was an extinct 

 volcano, as Vesuvius continued to be to a much later period ; 

 for Homer, speaking of ^tna, says nothing of its fires."|- Sub- 

 sequently, however, Thncydidcs preserved the memory of three 

 great eruptions, and Diodorus recorded another which had ta- 

 ken place in the first year of the 96th Olympiad. One hun- 

 dred and twenty-two years before Christ, the earth shook and 

 vomited fires even under the sea, and vessels perished near the 

 coast of Sicily. In Caesar's time a great eruption took place, 

 perhaps two ; as at his death, we find, the earth shook and the 

 air was obscured. The eruption in the 44th year of our aera 

 was recorded by Suetonius, only because it had made Caligula 

 run away from Messina ; and that of the year 812 was only 

 remembered for a similar cause, no less a personage than 

 Charlemagne having likewise been frightened. 



In the intermediate time (the year 252) torrents of liquid 

 fire running down the sides of JEtna turned away at the tomb 

 of St Agatha, an indigenous female saint who the year before 

 had suffered martyrdom on the spot. Possibly volcanic erup- 

 tions were as frequent as in modern times, but no one cared 

 then about natural phenomena of any sort, unless connected 

 with such great matters as the fright of an emperor or the 

 glory of a saint. 



Only two eruptiotis are recorded in the twelfth century, one 

 in the thirteenth, two in the fourteenth, four in the fifteenth, 

 and four in the sixteenth. During the last part of the fifteenth 

 century and the first part of the sixteenth, a period of ninety 

 years intervened without any. Twenty-two eruptions were re- 

 corded in the seventeenth century, thirty-two in the eighteenth, 

 and in the few years that have elapsed of this present century 

 already eight. Catania, shaken and more or less injured at 



• Extracted from A Tour in Italy and Sicili) in 1817- 1818. Lond. 1828. 

 P. 517, et seq. 



+ Yet Virgil exhibits them in all their terrific grandeur to the Trojans 

 on their arrival in port. 



. horrificis juxta tonat iEtna ruinis 



Interdumque atram prorumpit ad aethera nubem, 



Turbine fumantem piceo et candente favilla 



AtoUitque globes flammarum et sidera lambit, &c.-~ ^n. iii. ^71. 



