VOLCANOES. 227 



be produced.* A volcano, properly so called, exists only where 

 a permanent connection is established between the interior of 

 the earth and the atmosphere, and the reaction of the interior 

 on the surface then continues during long periods of time. It 

 may be interrupted for centuries, as in the case of Vesuvius, 

 Fisove,t and then manifest itself with renewed activity. In 

 the time of Nero, men were disposed to rank .^tna among 

 the volcanic mountains which were gradually becoming ex- 

 tinct ;t and subsequently u^lian§ even maintained that mar- 

 uiers could no longer see the sinking summit of the mountain 

 from so great a distance at sea. Where these evidences — 

 these old scaffoldings of eruption, I might almost say — still 

 exist, the volcano rises from a crater of elevation, while a high 

 rocky wall surrounds, like an amphitheater, the isolated con- 

 ical mount, and forms around it a kind of casing of highly ele- 



* Leopold von Bucb, Phys. Beschrcihung der Canarisclien Inseln, s. 

 326; and his Memoir iiber Erhebungscratere und Vulcane, in Poggend., 

 AnnaL, bd. xxxvii., s. 169. 



In his remarks on the separation of Sicily from Calabria, Strabo gives 

 *u excellent description of the two modes in v^hich islands are formed: 

 ' Some islands," he observes (lib. vi., p. 258, ed. Casaub.), " are frag 

 ments of the continent, others have arisen from the sea, as even at the 

 present time is known to happen; for the islands of the gi'eat ocean, 

 lying far from the main land, have probably been raised from its depths, 

 while, on the other hand, those near promontories appear (according to 

 rtason) to have been separated from the continent." 



t Ocre Fisove (Mous Vesuvius) in the Umbrian language. (Lassen, 

 Deiitung der Eiigubiniscken Tafeln in Rliein. Museum, 1832, s. 387.) 

 rho word ochre is very probably gemiine Urabrian, and means, accord- 

 ing to YesXAXS, mountain. iEtna would be a burning and shining mount- 

 •iin, if Voss is coiTect in stating that Altvtj is an Hellenic sound, and is 

 connected with aWu and aldcvoc ; but the intelligent writer Parthey 

 doubts this Hellenic origin on etymological grounds, and also because 

 yEtna was by no means regarded as a luminous beacon for ships or 

 wanderers, in the same manner as the ever-travailing Stromboli (Stron- 

 gyle), to which Homer seems to refer in the Odyssey (xii., 68, 202, 

 and 219), and its geographical position was not so well determined. I 

 suspect that iEtna would be found to be a Sicilian word, if we had any 

 fragmentary materials to refer to. According to Diodorus (v., 6), the 

 Sicani, or aborigines preceding the Sicilians, were compelled to fly to 

 the western part of the island, in consequence of successive eruptions 

 extending over many years. The most ancient eruption of Mount ^Etna 

 on record is that mentioned by Pindar and iEschylus, as occurring un- 

 der Hiero, in the second year of the 75th Olympiad. It is probable 

 that Hesiod was aware of the devastating eruptions of iEtna before the 

 period of Greek immigration. There is, however, some doubt regard- 

 ing the word Alrvrj in the text of Hesiod. a subject into which I have 

 entered at some length in another place. (Humboldt, Examen Crif 

 ie le Geogr., t. i., p. 168.) 



{ Seneca, Epist., 79. $ .Elian, Var. Hid., viii., 11. 



