366 Analysis of Scientific Books and Memoirs. 



ceedingly, but Naso was entirely destroyed. The volcanoes of Eolia con- 

 tributed much to the earthquakes of Calabria and Messina in 1783. 

 Stromboli was almost always in great commotion. For many days it 

 seemed like a mad bull, which, raised above the waves, by his roaring 

 filled Calabria and Sicily with terror. Vulcano often accompanied it, 

 and its deep rumblings, and vast columns of smoke and flame, were ter- 

 rible. 



After the violent earthquake of Sciacca in 1816, the same evil fortune 

 happened to other parts of the island. On the 15th of April 1817, a se- 

 vere shock terrified the people of Caltagirone in Valdinoto, and of the 

 neighbouring places. One happened at Catania in October, and another 

 on the 20th of February of the following year, 1818, which was enormous. 

 All the towns about iEtna were ruined, and many lives lost. Catania 

 felt its injurious effects. It was felt all over the island, since at Palermo 

 it produced three undulations. Others which followed it, and which 

 continued to agitate Catania and the neighbouring region until April, 

 were felt with greater force. All these shocks were the precursors of the 

 grand eruption of iEtna, which burst out on the 27th of May 1819, and 

 which lasted until August. While Sicily was trembling, the volcano was 

 making its preparations in silence. The effects of the operations of ./Etna, 

 are felt in places at a great distance from the mountain. After the 

 troubles of February and April, Catania and its vicinity enjoyed repose 

 until the 8th of September, when all Madonia was convulsed. Other 

 shocks succeeded in October and November. On the 25th of February 

 1819, a very severe one was felt, which extended to a great distance. At 

 Palermo, three motions were produced, the last of which was very violent. 

 The shocks in the whole of the vast extent of the mountains, where so 

 much injury was done to the houses of the numerous inhabitants of these 

 regions, were always preceded and followed by subterranean murmurs, 

 and distant explosions. Under these places, it seems that those substan- 

 ces were deposited, which ./Etna inflamed and ejected from its mouth in 

 the following May ; because, after the eruption commenced, Madonia was 

 left quiet ; while /Etna, which, till this time, and during the agitations 

 of Madonia, had remained perfectly calm, became convulsed with earth- 

 quakes. They accompanied the eruption. 



With the extinction of the conflagration in August, all the phenomena 

 ceased, and the earth was no longer agitated. But in 1822, iEtna showed 

 that the fermentation within its furnaces was again at work. On the 5th 

 of April, rumblings and continued explosions were heard, which were fol- 

 lowed by great clouds of smoke, violently driven from the crater by the 

 impetuous current of elastic vapours. A shower of sulphurous ashes fell 

 all around. On the 6th, a violent shock convulsed all the towns between 

 JEtna and Madonia, Capizzi, Cesara, Sperlinga, Troina, Gangi, Gagliano ; 

 but in the midst of these, Nicosia seemed the centre of impulse in all the 

 shocks which followed throughout the month. Its soil appeared on the 

 point of being torn up by force, many buildings were destroyed, and its 

 inhabitants fled in consternation to find an asylum in the country. The 



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