CHAPTER XLVT 



CATANIA 



T7ESTERDAY," Uncle Paul resumed, " Jules 

 JL asked me if the lava-streams could not reach 

 towns situated near volcanoes. The following story 

 will answer his question. It is about an eruption of 

 Mount Etna. " 



"Etna is that volcano in Sicily where the big chest- 

 nut tree of a hundred horses is?" asked Claire. 



"Yes. I must tell you that two hundred years ago 

 there occurred in Sicily one of the most terrible erup- 

 tions on record. During the night, after a furious 

 storm, the earth began to tremble so violently that a 

 great many houses fell. Trees swayed like reeds 

 shaken by the wind; people, fleeing distracted into 

 the country to avoid being crushed under the ruins 

 of their buildings, lost their footing on the (|unkiiiir 

 ground, stumbled, and fell. At that moment Etna 

 burst in a fissure four leagues long, and along this 

 fissure rose a number of volcanic mouths, vomit inir, 

 amid the crash of frightful detonations, clouds of 

 black smoke and calcined sand. Soon seven of these 

 mouths united in an abyss that for four months did 

 not cease tlmndrriiiLr, n lowing, and throwing up cin- 

 ders and lava. The crater of Ktna, at first quite at 

 rest, as if its furnaces had no connection with the 

 new volcanic mouths, woke up a few days after and 



205 



