222 Analyses of Books, \%^W. 



bourhood, nil of which have been formed by successive ejeo-; 

 tions of matter fi-om its interior. ' 



" The i^randest and most original feature indeed in the physiog- 

 nomy of Etna, is the zone of subordinate volcanic hills, with 

 which it is encompassed, and which look like a court of subal- 

 tern princes waiting upon their sovereign. ' 



" Of these, some are covered with vegetation, others are bare 

 and arid, their relative antiquity being probably denoted by the 

 progress vegetation has made upon their surface ; and the extra- 

 ordinary difference that exists in this respect, seems to indicate 

 that the mountain to which they owe their origin must have 

 been in a state of activity, if not at a period antecedent to the 

 commencement of the present order of things, at least at a dis- 

 tance of time exceedingly remote." P. 204. 



The Professor then exposes the mistake into which Brydone 

 was led by the Abbe Recupero, with regard to the existence of 

 vegetable mould, intervening between the beds of lava at Jace 

 Reale, thus overturning the argument founded on the above 

 fact, which that lively writer has brought forward, to prove the 

 great antiquity of the eruptions of this volcano. Here, however, 

 there is the less necessity for following him, as the details may 

 be seen in Dr. Daubeny's Sketch of the Geology of Sicily ,^ 

 published in a contemporary journal. 



In the third lecture we are glad to find an abstract of Von 

 Buch's valuable Memoirs on the Canary Islands, which, having 

 never been translated into our language, remain in some 

 measure a sealed book to English geologists. 



Dr. Daubeny has shown the probable existence of volcanos in 

 the East, from many concurrent circumstances. Thus the 

 accounts of volcanic matter in Asia Minor, and the occurrence 

 of a Grotto del Cane near Smyrna, described by Strabo, and 

 rediscovered by Chandler ; the correspondence between the 

 traditions that existed in Persia and Greece with respect to the 

 supposed volcano of Demavend in the former country, and 

 those of Sicily and Campania ; the analogy between the Typhoeus 

 of the Greek poets and the Zohag of the Zend-Avesta ; the 

 frequent allusions to volcanic phaenomena in Holy Writ ; and, 

 above all, the destruction by fire of the five cities in the plain of 

 Siddim, all tend to establish the operation of subterranean fire 

 in these countries, at a period, which, (geologically speaking,) 

 must be accounted modern. 



He even explains the formation of the Dead Sea, by imagining 

 a stream of lava to have flowed across the river Jordan, and to 

 have obstructed its channel, which in all probability extended at 

 some former period to the Red Sea, as the late interesting- 

 researches of Burckhardt have indicated. 



Dr. Daubeny shows that there is nothing contrary to analogy 



