Dr. Daubeny on the Geotogy of Sicily. 253 
quotes an observation made him by the Abbé Recupero, 
which seems to him to impugn the faith of our received c 
wren are, in reality, of a date antecedent to the last gene- 
ral eruption of the waters, for I have perceived nothing 
anialbgerin to these beds among the lavas which the mountain 
sends forth at present. 
_ At all events Brydone has been grossly deceived, in im- 
gining that the seven beds of lava seen lying, one above 
) the other, near this spot, have been successively decomposed 
vegetable mould; the substance which really intet vores 
For volcanic shee such as + aeally msi or follows an 
eg of lava, mixed up with mud, or consolidated by 
course, his inference with respect to the antiquity of 
es str falls to the ground, as being founded on the fact of 
the decomposition of so si: beds of lava, which turns out 
to be altogether a mist 
With regard to the m those modern lavas of Mount Etna, 
those, I mean, of manifestly postdiluvian origin, I have only 
to remark, that they exhibit much. less variety, both in the 
nature of their component parts, and in that of their accident- 
al ingredients, than do those of Vesuvius, The older lavas 
belonging to this class sometimes possess the characters of 
porphyry slate, and even of trachyte, from which there would 
seem to be a gradation, dependent on the relative antiquity 
of the beds, down to the lavas of the present aac iach 
: have the usual cellular and vitreous aspect of such mala 
2 Having made this opiate whilst in Sicily, 1 was 
pleased on my return, to find, on perusing some papers o 
eelebrated:Prussian geologist Vou Buch, (in the Transactions 
of the Berlin Academy,) that a imilar observation is there 
recorded, on lavas in general, which are conceived by him to 
the conscience to make his mountain so young as that ag apr makes 
the world. The Bishop, who is strenuously orthodox,—for it is an ex- 
cellent See,—has already warned him to be upon his gward, "ae not 
Mose resume 
any thing that may in the sma mallest degree be deemed contradictory to 
his sacred authority.”——Brydone’s Tour through Sicily, Vol. 1. p. 140. 
