Chap. 47-1 Crater of .-Etna. 331 



mendous head, vomiting torrents of thick fmoke. The 

 difficulty of afeending. this part of the mountain, is 

 greatly increafed by the uncertainty of a iecure foot- 

 ing; for the furface of the mountain being hot below, 

 frequently melts the fnow in particular ipots, and forms 

 pools of water where it is impoffible to forefee the 

 danger; fometimes, likewife, it happens that the fur- 

 face of the water, as well as the fnow, is covered wiih 

 black afhes, which render it exceedingly deceitful. 

 At firft the afcent is not fo deep, but it becomes fo by 

 degrees. In this region are the remains of an ancient 

 frructure called // Torre del Filcfofdy and fuppofed to 

 have been built by Empedocles, a native of Agrk'en- 

 tum, who is faid to have died 400 years before the 

 chriftian era. His vanity, perhaps, rather than his 

 philofophy. led him to this elevated fituation. Dcii- 

 rous of being regarded as a god, he is recorded to 

 have thrown himielf into the great gulph of /Etnr., in 

 hopes that the people would imagine he had been 

 taken up to heaven, and never fuppofing that his 

 death would be difcovered to mankind. But the 

 treacherous mountain' threw out his flippers, which, 

 were of brafs, and announced to the world the fate 

 of the pretended philofopher, who preferred an airy 

 fame, which he was beyond the reach cf 'eiipying, to 

 the folid advantages of exiftence, and who was con- 

 tent to purchaie the admiration of an ignorant mul- 

 titude with the meannefs of deceit, and the facrifice of 

 life*. 



Many {Inking remains of the great eruption in 1669 

 are ftill to be leen, and will long continue as memo- 

 rials of that dreadful event which overwhelmed Cata- 

 nia, and all the adjacent country. Tremendous 



* See prefent Rate of Sicily and Malta. 



earthquakes 



