THE COASTS OF SICILY. 83 



blocks which have been cooled for more than two 

 hundred years there is scarcely one which exhibits 

 any traces of the action of time. All are of a deep 

 black colour, and their edges and angles are as sharply 

 cut as if they had been cooled and broken up only 

 the day before. Not a blade of grass grows on these 

 rocks, which seem to repulse every form of vegeta- 

 tion, excepting here and there, where a few lichens, 

 in thin and irregular patches, appear to struggle for 

 their very existence.* 



On our arrival at Nicolosi, we were received by 

 Doctor Mario Gemellaro, one of those three brothers 

 who, not satisfied with having consecrated their lives 

 to the observation of the phenomena of Etna, have 

 endeavoured by every means in their power to faci- 

 litate to travellers the study of their cherished 

 mountain.f Before their time, the tourist who 

 visited Etna was obliged to sleep under an ancient 

 lava bank, where a poor shelter was furnished by a 

 recess in the rock, known as the Grotta delle Capre ; 

 and in order to reach the summit of the cone before 



* In his letters on Sicily, Von Borch pretends that the lava of 

 1669 has been covered with one inch of soil. This is an error of 

 observation -which it is very difficult to explain, and which has 

 already been noticed by Spallanzani. See his Viaggi alle due Sicilie. 

 Even in our day the cheire of 1669 possesses no other soil but 

 that which has been transported to it 



f The family of Gemellaro numbers amongst its members three 

 brothers, who have all attained to distinction ; one of them, Giuseppi 

 Gemellaro, the author of a plan of Etna, died several years ago. A 

 second brother, Carlo Gemellaro, is still a professor at the University 

 of Catania. Mario Gemellaro, a physician at Nicolosi and a learned 

 naturalist, has published several highly interesting memoirs on the 

 meteorology, botany, and geology of Etna. 



c 2 



