206 On the Antiquity of the Volcanos of Auvergne. | April, 
And yet of all natural phenomena a burning mountain is the 
one which in all ages most forcibly rivets the attention of the mul- 
titude, and of which the memory is longest retained by tradition, or 
by means of the popular fables engrafted upon it. 
The volcanic fire once raging near Lemnos, about Santorino, in 
Argolis, and elsewhere, is made the subject of many a poetic legend, 
and even less formidable phenomena of the same kind, such as the 
bursting forth of flames from the ground, are carefully recorded by 
the naturalists of Greece and Rome. 
The most convincing proof, however, that the voleanos of 
Central France were not in activity so late at least as the fourth 
century of the Christian era, or at any period antecedent to this, 
which would be included within the range comprised by the his- 
tories or the traditions of the country, is afforded by the absence of 
all allusion to such phenomena in the existing works of Sidonius 
Apollinaris. 
We learn from some of his writings which have come down to 
us, that he had a palace on the borders of Lake Aidat, in the very 
midst of the volcanic region alluded to. In one of his poems he 
celebrates the beauties of this residence, and compares it to his 
former abode at Bai, near Naples ; but not a hint escapes him that 
he had ever witnessed or even heard of any volcanic eruption in his 
neighbourhood, although he must have been familiar with the 
nature of such phenomena, from haying previously resided in the 
neighbourhood of Vesuvias. 
And yet the very lake near which his episcopal palace stood, owed 
its origin to one of the more recent, or, according to Dr. Buckland’s 
hypothesis, of the post-diluvial eruptions, one which, invading the 
bed of the little River Sioule, by the stream of lava it sent out, 
raised a barrier across it, and ponded up its waters, until they accu- 
mulated to such an extent as to form a considerable sheet of water. 
It was on these grounds that in the account I published in 
1819 of this my earliest visit to Auvergne, I concluded that 
although some of the volcanos of this country might have been. in 
activity since the epoch of the Noachian deluge, they must all have 
been extinct before the Roman invasion; and this conclusion was 
assented to by Mr. Scrope, Sir Charles Lyell, and other geologists, 
who afterwards explored the district. 
Nevertheless, in the year 1844, a different view of the subject 
was advanced by an eminent historian and antiquary, Sir Francis 
Palgrave, who, in an article “ On the Norman Conquest,” in the 
‘ Quarterly Review,’ endeavoured to show by some quotations from 
the writings of Sidonius Apollinaris, and of Alcimus Avitus, Bishop 
of Vienne, that the voleanos of Auvergne had been in activity so late 
as the fourth century after Christ.* . 
* Reference was made to Sidonii Apollinaris, Epist. 1; and Alcimi Aviti 
‘Homiliz de Rogationibus,’ 
