298 DOMAIN XII. VOLCANIC. 



meval waters, like most other rocks, at a 

 period when the power of crystallisation 

 was more vigorous, as appears from all the 

 other primitive substances ; and nothing 

 can be more rational than to infer that vol- 

 canoes not only existed in that state of the 

 globe, as they are now known to exist in 

 the vast depths of the ocean ; but that they 

 must have been far more numerous, and 

 of greater power, than in the subsequent 

 tranquil state of the elements*. 

 Ferraris Ferrara, the intelligent professor of na- 



system. 



tural philosophy in the university of Ca- 

 tania, has just published a learned work on 

 the volcanoes of Sicily, and the adjacent 



isles-j-. This treatise is certainly important 



. 



* In his grand and surprising course of lectures, 1811, Dr. Davy 

 is said to have produced an artificial volcano, being a hillock of clay 

 enclosing a mixture of potassium, iron, and lime : on pouring water, 

 smoke, flame, and lava, issued from the crater. The earths, he con- 

 ceives, may exist in a metallic state in the centre of the globe, and, 

 combined with water, may become earths, and supply new con- 

 tinents. 



f I Campi Flegrei delta Sitilia, e delle isole die le sono intorno ; 

 o Discrizione Fisica e Mineralogica di queste Isole. JDelT abate 

 Francesco Ferrara, Professore primario di Fisica nella Regia Uni- 

 versifa di Catania, Dottore di Filosofia e Medicina, e Socio di vane 

 Academic. Messina, dalta Stamperia dell Armuta Britannic^. 



