NOTES. 



Homer, Th. ii. 1, S. 200). Puo is the volcanic phenomenon taken in its most 

 striking feature, namely, the lava current : hence the expression, the pvaxes 

 of 2Etna. Aristol. Mirah. T. ii. p. 833, sect. 38, Bekker; Thucyd. iii. 116 ; 

 Theophr. de Lap. 22, p. 427, Schneider; Diod. v. 6, and xiv. 59, where there 

 are the remarkable words : " Many towns near the sea, and not far from 

 JEtna, have been destroyed," VTTO rou KaXovfitvov PVO.KOS ; Strabo, vi. p. 269, 

 liii. p. 628 ; on the celebrated " burning mud" of the Lelantine plains in 

 Eubsea, see i. p. 58, Casaub. ; and, lastly, Appian. de bello civili, v. 114. The 

 censure which Aristotle (Meteor, ii. 2, 19), passes on the geognostical fancies 

 in Phsedon only applies, strictly, to the origin of the rivers which flow on the 

 surface of the Earth. We cannot but be struck with Plato's distinctly 

 expressed assertion, that, in Sicily, " humid emissions of mud precede the 

 burning streams," or currents of lava. May we suppose that rapilli and ashes, 

 formed into a paste by melted snow and water during a volcano-electric storm 

 over the crater of eruption, may have been regarded as erupted mud ? or is it 

 not more probable that Plato's streams of liquid mud are mere reminiscences 

 of the salses (mud-volcanoes) of Agrigentum, which eject mud with a loud 

 noise, and have been noticed in Note 210. We have to regret, on this sub- 

 ject, among the many lost writings of Theophrastus, the loss of one " on the 

 volcanic current in Sicily," (irepi rov pvaitos ef 2t/ceAia), mentioned by Diog. 

 Laert. v. 39. 



P 6 ) p. 228. Von Buch, Physikal. Beschreib. der Canarischen Inseln, 

 S. 326407. I doubt the correctness of the view to which Darwin appears 

 to incline (Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands, 1844, p. 127); 

 according to which, central volcanoes would be regarded generally as short 

 volcanic chains over parallel fissures. Hoffmann had already supposed that 

 in the group of the Lipari Islands, which he has so well described, and in 

 the two fissures of eruption which intersect near Panaria, he had found an 

 intermediate link between Von Buch's central volcanoes and volcanic chains 

 (Poggend. Ann. der Physik. Bd. xxvi. S. 8188). 



^ i ) p. 229. Humboldt, Geognost. Beob. iiber die Vulkane des Hochlandes 

 von Quito, in Poggend. Aunalen, Bd. xliv. S. 194. 



C 228 ) p. 229. Seneca, in speaking very pertinently of the problematical lower- 

 ing of Mount jEtna, says, in his 79th letter : " Potest hoc accidere, non quia 

 mentis altitude desedit, sed quia ignis evauuit et minus vehemens ac largus 

 effertur : ob eandem causam, fumo quoque per diem segniore. Neutrum autem 

 incredibile est, nee montem qui devoretur quotidie minui, nee ignem non manere 

 undern ; quia non ipse ex se est, sed in aliqua inferna valle conceptusexastuat 

 VOL. I. 2 G 



