620 



THE CENTURY BOOK OF FACTS. 



as a sitting room, was imported from America 

 and exhibited in London. The trunk was 80 

 eet high without a branch, and the entire 

 height 150 feet, the bark 12 inches thick, and 

 the branches from 3 to 4 feet in diameter. 

 The California pine is from 150 to 200 feet 

 high, and from 20 to 60 feet in diameter. The 

 forests in watered, tropical countries are formed 

 of trees from 100 to 200 feet high, which grow 

 to the water's edge of rivers, presenting a solid 

 and impenetrable barrier of trunks 10 or 

 12 feet in diameter. The dragon tree is in girth 

 from 40 to 100 feet, and 50 or 60 feet high, 

 and a mimosa in South America is described 

 whose head is 600 feet round. 



Mount Etna and Its Eruptions. 

 Mount Etna is a volcano of Sicily, and has 

 been active from the earliest times. The an- 

 cients had a fable that beneath the mountain 

 was buried a mighty giant, Enceladus, whom 

 Jove had hurled from heaven for rebellion, and 

 pinned to earth by tossing a mountain upon 

 him. The flames were the breath of the im- 

 prisoned monster, the loud noises his groans, 

 and earthquakes were caused by his efforts to 

 turn over his enormous body. The first re- 

 corded eruption of Etna occurred before the 

 supposed date of the Trojan war, but its ex- 

 act time is not known. Thucydides, the his- 

 torian, next records three eruptions one in 

 the year 475 B. C., one in 425, and the third 

 at an earlier date not specified. Since those 

 there have been, down to the present time, 

 seventy-eight outbreaks, many of them harm- 

 less. Among the most remarkable of the 

 great eruptions were that of 1169 A. D., when 

 Catania and 15,000 of its inhabitants were 

 destroyed ; that of 1527, in which two villages 

 were destroyed and many human beings per- 

 ished ; and two eruptions of 1669, in which 15 

 villages were destroyed. Many fissures in the 

 earth were made at this time one twelve miles 

 long, which emitted a most vivid light. After- 

 ward five other fissures opened, from which 

 came smoke and loud noises. The city of 

 Catania, at the foot of the mountain, had 

 built a wall sixty feet high on that side to pro- 

 tect it, but the lava rose until it overflowed the 

 wall and poured a current of liquid fire into 

 the houses. ' This current flowed onward until 

 it reached the sea, 15 miles distant. It was 

 600 yards wide and 40 feet deep. Entering 

 the sea, the water was thrown into violent 

 commotion, the noise of its agitation was as 

 loud as thunder, and clouds of steam darkened 

 the air for many hours. The eruption of 1755 

 was remarkable for an inundation caused by 

 the flow of the hot lava over the snow that 

 covered the mountain. It was imagined at the 

 time that the water was thrown out of the 



crater. A great eruption took place in 1852, 

 immense clouds of ashes being ejected. From 

 two new openings on the east vast torrents of 

 lava poured out, one of which was two miles 

 broad, and in part of its course 170 feet deep. 

 The outbreak of May, 1879, was violent, the 

 clouds of smoke and showers of ashes being 

 followed by the ejection of a stream of lava 

 200 feet wide, which desolated large tracts of 

 cultivated land. There were also eruptions in 

 1883 and 1886, but both subsided before any 

 great damage had been caused. Mount Etna 

 is now 10,868 feet high. It is known that 

 frequent eruptions have broken off large parts 

 of the upper portion of the mountain. Its 

 surface is divided into three distinct regions. 

 The lowest is that of fertile -land, producing 

 fruit and grain, which extends 2,000 feet from 

 the base up the mountain side, with a circum- 

 ference of 92 miles. Above this is a strip 

 nearly 4,300 feet wide, covered with large 

 forests, above which to the mountain top there 

 is only a dreary waste of ashes and hardened 

 lava. In spite of its tragic history, the sides 

 of the mountain have a population of over 

 300,000 people in 63 small villages and 2 large 

 cities. 



Postage Stamps, Language of. Of 

 late years the postage stamp has been in- 

 vested with a language of its own. When a 

 stamp is inverted on tr-e right-hand upper cor- 

 ner, it means the person written to is to write 

 no more. If the stamp be placed on the left- 

 hand upper corner, inverted, then the writer 

 declares his affection for the receiver of the 

 letter. When the stamp is in the center at the 

 top it signifies an affirmative answer to a ques- 

 tion or the questions, as the case may be ; and 

 when it is at the bottom, it is a negative. 

 Should the stamp be on the right-hand corner, 

 at a right angle, it asks the question if the re- 

 ceiver of the letter loves the sender ; while in 

 the left-hand corner means that the writer 

 hates the other. There is a shade of difference 

 between desiring one's acquaintance and friend- 

 ship. For example : the stamp at the upper 

 corner at the right expresses the former, and on 

 the lower left-hand corner means the latter. 

 The stamp on a line with the surname is an 

 offer of love ; in the same place, only reversed, 

 signifies that the writer is engaged. To say 

 farewell, the stamp is placed straight up and 

 down in the left-hand corner. 



Fabian Policy. The policy of wearing 

 out the enemy in war by delays, misleading 

 movements, feints of attack, etc., while avoid- 

 ing open battle, is called the " Fabian policy " 

 from the following circumstance : Fabius Max- 

 imus was a Roman General in the second Pu- 

 nic War. Having been appointed just after 



