14 



BURNING MOUNTAINS. 



MOUNT 



It takes its name either from athuna, a furnace, or cetuna, darkness. 

 This mountain, famous from the remotest antiquity, both for its bulk 

 and terrible eruptions, stands in the eastern part of the Island of Sicily 

 in a very extensive plain, called Fat di demoni, from the notion that it 

 is inhabited by devils, who are supposed to torment the spirits of the 

 condemned in the bowels of this volcano. There is much difference of 

 opinion as to the height of this mountain, as also its circumference. 

 Pindar, who lived 435 B. C., calls it the Pillar of Heaven, on account 

 of its great height. The upper regions of ^Etna are so cold, as scarcely 

 to be available for the purposes of tillage and cultivation. Lower down 

 commences the large woody regions, which consist of large forest trees. 

 Below these lie the plains, which are mostly laid out in vineyards, the 

 slope of them being very gradual; and here it is that, when the liquid fire 

 arrives, there is most cause for alarm. At the very top it is perpetually 

 covered with snow, from thence the whole is supplied with that article 

 so necessary in a hot climate, and without which, the natives say, Sicily 

 could not be inhabited. 



In the middle of the snowy region stands the great crater, or mouth 

 of ^Etna ; it is a little mountain, about a quarter of a mile perpendicular, 

 and very steep, situate in the middle of a gently-inclining plain, of about 

 nine miles in circumference. It is entirely formed of stones and ashes, 

 in the middle of a hollow of about 2J miles in circumference, but by 

 some writers it is considered more : the inside is crusted over with 

 salts and sulphur of different colours. It goes shelving down from the 

 top like an inverted cone, the depth of which nearly corresponds to the 

 height of the little mountain. From many parts of this place issue 

 volcanoes of sulphureous smoke, which, being much heavier than the 

 circumambient air, instead of ascending in it, roll down the side of the 

 mountain, till, coming to a more dense atmosphere, it shoots off horizon- 

 tally, and forms a large track in the air according to the direction of the 

 wind. In the middle of this funnel is the tremendous and unfathomable 

 gulf, so much celebrated in all ages, both as the terror of this life and 

 the place of punishment in the next. From this gulf continually issue 



