VOL. IV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 383 



carried up into the air some of that vast pillar of ashes, which to our apprehen- 

 sion exceeded twice the size of St. Paul's steeple in London, and went up in a 

 straight body to a far greater height than it ; the whole air being thereabout all 

 covered with the lightest of those ashes blown off from the top of this pillar : 

 And from the first breaking out of the fire till its fury ceased, being 54 days, 

 neither sun nor star were seen in all that part. 



From the outside of this pillar fell off great quantities of stones, but none 

 very large, neither could we discern any fire in them, nor see where the fiery 

 matter broke out, there being a great bank or hill of ashes between it and us. 



At the mouth whence issued the fire and ashes, was a continual noise, like 

 the beating of great waves of the sea against rocks, or like thunder afar off, 

 which sometimes I have heard here in Messina, though situated at the foot of 

 high hills, and 6o miles off^. It has also been heard 100 miles northward of 

 this place, in Calabria, whither the ashes have also been carried : And some of 

 our seamen have also reported that their decks were covered therewith at Zante, 

 though probably not very thick. 



About the middle of May we found the face of things much altered, the city 

 of Catania being three quarters of it compassed round with these sciarri, as high 

 as the top of the walls ; and in many places they had broke over. The first 

 night of our arrival a new stream of fire broke out among some sciarri, which 

 we were walking upon an hour or two before, and they were as high as to be 

 even with the top of the wall. It poured itself down into the city in a small 

 stream of about 3 feet broad, and Q feet long of fire, the extremities still falling 

 ofF into those sciarri ; but this stream was extinct by the next morning, though 

 it had filled up a great void place with its sciarri. The next night another 

 much larger channel was discovered, pouring itself over another part of the wall 

 into the castle ditch, which continued, as we were informed, some days after 

 our departure. Divers of those small rivulets ran at the same time into the seay 

 and it does so still at this very day, though faintly. 



Having spent a couple of days about Catania, we again went up to the mouth, 

 where now without any danger of fire or ashes we could take a free view both 

 of the old and new channel of the fire, and of that great mountain of ashes cast 

 up. That which we guessed to be the old bed or channel, was a three cornered 

 plot of about 2 acres, with a crust of sciarri at the bottom, and upon that a 

 small crust or surface of brimstone. It was hedged in on each side with a great 

 bank or hill of ashes, and behind and at the upper end rose up that huge 

 mountain of the same matter. Between those two banks the fire seems to have 

 had its passage. At the upper end in the nook upon a little hillock of crusted 

 sciarri was a hole about 10 feet wide, whence probably the fire issued; and it 

 VOL. I. 3 C 



