886 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 166q. 



might have had several other such holes, since either crusted over or covered 

 with ashes. At the bottom of this hole the fire was seen to flow along, and 

 below it was a channel of fire, beneath that surface of sciarri, which being cleft 

 a-top for some space, we had an easy and deliberate view of the metal flowing 

 along, whose superficies might be a yard broad, though possibly it carried a 

 greater breadth underneath, the gutter sloping. What depth it had we could 

 not guess : it was impenetrable by iron hooks and other instruments. We 

 were very desirous to have got some of this matter at the spring head, but we 

 could not penetrate into it. It is likely that some running may have been more 

 yielding than we found this. From this channel, but especially from that hole 

 above it, issued great quantities of a strong sulphureous smoke, wherewith 

 some of our company were at first almost stifled. About once in a quarter of 

 an hour there rose a pillar of smoke or ashes, but nothing comparable to the 

 former; which seemed to come from the middle top of that new made 

 mountain. 



We found the people busy in barricading the ends of some streets and pas- 

 sages, where they thought the fire might break in ; and this they did by pulling 

 down the old houses, and laying up the loose stones in manner of a wall. 



At present the fire is said to have run a mile into the sea, and as much in 

 front. The superficies of the water, for 20 feet or more of those rivulets of fire, 

 was hotter than to endure one's hand in it, though deeper it was more tempe- 

 rate, and those live sciarri still retained their fire under water, as we saw when 

 the surges of the sea retreated back in their ordinary reverberations. 



The general face of these sciarri is in some respect not much unlike, from 

 the beginning to the end, to the river Thames in a great frost at the top of the 

 ice above bridge ; I mean lying after such a rugged manner in great flakes : but 

 its colour is quite different, being mostly of a dark dusky blue, and some stones 

 or rocks of a vast size, close and solid. 



But notwithstanding their ruggedness, and store of fire, which we could see 

 glowing in the clefts and cavities, we made a shift to ramble over a good part 

 of them ; as it is said also that people would do the same in its greatest violence 

 of burning. For as those live sciarri, and those rivers of fire themselves were 

 so tough and impenetrable as to bear any weight, so the superficies of the 

 sciarri might be touched and handled, the fire being inward, and not to be dis- 

 cerned but near hand, especially in the day time : And it was a strange sight 

 to see so great a river come so tamely forward ; for, as it approached unto any 

 house, they not only at good leisure removed their goods, but the very tiles 

 and beams, and what else was moveable. 

 . The whole country, from the very walls of Catania, to 20 miles on this side. 



