250 THE 



eruption of modern times occurred in the year 1669. Previous 

 to this eruption, an earthquake occurred which levelled many of 

 the villages and towns in the neighborhood, and was attended 

 with an extraordinary phenomenon. A fissure, six feet broad and 

 of unknown depth, opened with a loud crash in the plain of St. 

 Lio, and run to within a mile of the summit of Etna, in a some- 

 what tortuous course. Its direction was from north to south, and 

 it emitted a most vivid light. Five other parallel fissures of con- 

 siderable length, afterwards opened, one after another, attended 

 with similar phenomena. Mr. Lyell supposes that these were., at 

 the time, filled with melted trap or porphyry* forming vertical 

 dikes. During this eruption a minor cone known by the name 

 of Monti Rossi, was formed, about 450 feet high, which poured 

 out a lava current, which after overflowing some fourteen towns 

 and villages, some having a population of 3000 to 4000 inhabit- 

 ants reached the city of Catania, ten miles distant from the vol- 

 cano. Walls sixty feet high had been purposely raised to pro- 

 tect the city in case of eruption. Against this rampart the lava 

 flowed, and accumulated, until in a fiery cascade, it poured over 

 the top, and destroyed a part of the city. The wall still remains, 

 and the curious traveler may see the lava curling over the top, 

 by means of excavations since made, as if still in.the very act of 

 falling. This lava current moved a distance of fifteen miles be- 

 fore it reached the sea. One of the towns overflowed during this 

 eruption was Mompiliere, a part of which, was afterwards un- 

 covered with incredible labor, and the gate of the principal 

 Church was reached at a depth of thirty-five feet, and several ar- 

 ticles in good preservation were extracted, among these were a 

 hell, a statue, and some coins. It is said that the heat of this lava 

 current was so intense eight years afterwards, that it was impos- 

 sible to hold the hand on some of the crevices formed by the 

 cracking of its crust upon cooling. In the year 1828 a remarka- 

 ble discovery of a glacier covered by a lava stream was made, 

 after having been concealed for ages. In that year, from the pro- 

 tracted heat of the season, supplies of ice at Catania and the ad- 

 joining parts of Sicily, failed entirely, and great distress was felt 

 at the want of a commodity which they had learned to regard as 



