88 WALKS AND TALKS. 



a circumference at base of one hundred miles. It rises 10,840 

 feet above sea-level, and 3,000 feet above the forest-limit. 

 The highest cone is a black and silent waste. The whole 

 mountain, from top to bottom, is a series of frozen lava- 

 sheets piled one above another. Some conception of the age 

 of the mountain may be formed from the fact that JEtna has 

 been known from the earliest ages as a volcanic mountain, 

 and eruptions have occurred, on an average, once in ten years, 

 yet, within the historic period its bulk and altitude have not 

 increased to a perceptible extent. The eruptions of ^Etna are 

 attended by circumstances similar to those of Vesuvius. The 

 lava, however, does not escape, in modern times, from the 

 summit crater, but breaks through the wall at some distance 

 below. In 1669, the Monti Rossi, so-called, were formed, and 

 27,000 persons were deprived of all shelter, and many lives 

 were lost in the descending streams* of lava. In 1693, an 

 eruption was accompanied by a fearful earthquake which par- 

 tially or totally destroyed forty towns and caused a loss of 

 sixty to one hundred thousand lives. 



One of the greatest eruptions of modern times occurred in 

 1865. After violent premonitory symptoms two years pre- 

 viously, when the loftiest cone of the volcano opened on the 

 side and emitted a large stream of lava, the wall of the 

 mountain yielded to the pressure of its molten contents. 

 Some subterranean roaring was first heard ; slight agitations 

 affected the whole eastern part of Sicily, and the ground was 

 rent open for a mile and a half to the north of Monte Fru- 

 mento, one of the secondary cones which rise on the slope of 

 ^Etna. This vomited lava for a few hours, when, seeming to 

 be obstructed, fresh outbursts occurred a little lower down, 

 and six cones of ejection were built up. These and smaller 

 ones blended together in an elevation of nearly 300 feet. Soon 

 the two upper craters hurled forth only lumps of stone and 

 ashes, while the lower poured forth lava. Then followed the 

 diversified phenomena of a prolonged eruption, which, however 

 interesting, we have not space to describe. Of the volume of 

 lava something may be said. 



