90 



tation ; and from an object of horror becomes one of de- 

 light. Here you gather the most delicious fruits, rising 

 from what was lately a black and barren rock. Here 

 the ground is covered with every flower ; and we wan- 

 der over these beauties, and contemplate this wilderness 

 of sweets without considering that hell and ail its ter- 

 rors are immediately under our feet, and thai but few 

 yards separate us from lakes of liquid fire and brimstone. 



But our astonishment still increases, on casting our 

 eyes on the higher regions of the mountain. There we 

 behold in perpetual union, the two elements that are in 

 perpetual war ; an immense gulph of fire, for ever ex- 

 isting in the midst of snows, \\hich it has nor-po\ver to 

 melt ; and immense fields of snow and ice for ever sur- 

 rounding this gulph of fire, which they have not power 

 to extinguish. 



The quantity of matter discharged from ./Etna, is sup 

 posed upon a moderate computation to exceed twenty 

 times the original bulk of the mountain. The greatest 

 part of Sicily seems covered with its eruptions. The 

 inhabitants of Catanea have found at the distance of se- 

 veral miles, streets and houses, sixty feet deep^ over- 

 whelmed by the lava or matter it has discharged : nay 

 the walls of these ve^y houses have been built of ma- 

 terials evidently thrown up by the mountain. The in- 

 ference is obvious : that the matter thus exploded can- 

 not belong to the mountain itself : otherwise it would 

 have been quickly consumed : it cannot be derived from 

 moderate depths ; since its amazing quantity evinces 

 that all the places near the bottom, must have long 

 since been exhausted : it niUat therefore be supplied from 

 the deeper region of the earth ; these undiscvered 

 tracts, where the deity performs his wonders in solitude. 



An eruption of Mount /Etna, in 1669, was preceded 

 for eighteen days, with a dark, thick sky, thunder, light 

 rung, and frequent tremblings of the earth. The place 

 of eruption was twenty miles from the old mouth : the 

 matter of it was a stream of melted minerals, boil- 

 ing up and gushing out, as water does at the head of a 

 great river. Having run thus for more than a stoned 



