THE COASTS OF SICILY. 73 



can reach the springs that supply them with water. 

 The liquid fire has filled up its harbours, consumed 

 its gardens, broken down its walls, and buried entire 

 districts. Earthquakes, moreover, have destroyed 

 what the lava had spared, and yet Catania has ever 

 risen from the midst of her ruins, and after each 

 new destruction has laid down wider streets, erected 

 loftier palaces, and founded more splendid convents 

 and churches. Yet she has not been able wholly to 

 efface the traces of these catastrophes ; and standing 

 upon this soil, which has been so often upheaved, 

 we everywhere found ample materials on which to 

 begin those geological observations which, for a 

 few days, were to supersede our ordinary zoological 

 studies. 



The little inlet of the sea which at the present 

 day forms the harbour of Catania, bears no resem- 

 blance to that magnificent port which was cele- 

 brated by the poets of antiquity, who inform us that 

 it reached more than three miles inland, penetrating 

 to the very hills of Licatia, and everywhere secur- 

 ing to ships a safe anchorage, protected by an 

 island.* The harbour in which Ulysses found 



* " Portus ab accessu ventorum immotus et ingens 

 Ipse, sed horrificis juxta tonat JEtna ruinis." 



VIRGIL. 



We still daily meet with proofs of the existence of this ancient 

 strand. In the eastern portions of Catania the wells traverse a 

 thick stratum of lava until they reach a bed of clay or sand, which 

 is occasionally intermixed with boulders and rounded pebbles ; and 

 here may be found a large number of shells, belonging to the same 

 Molluscs which in the present day live within the harbour and along 

 the neighbouring coasts. Fragments of wood have also been found 

 in the same locality. 



