102 RAMBLES OP A NATURALIST. 



circumference, which from the llth of March to the 

 15th of July never ceased to pour forth its thunder- 

 ing roar, to eject cinders and scoriae, and to vomit 

 forth streams of lava. 



Up to this moment, the great crater had remained 

 as completely inactive as if its caverns had no com- 

 munication with those of the new volcano ; when all 

 at once, on the 15th of March, towards ten o'clock 

 at night, the entire mountain seemed to shake. 

 First a gigantic column of black smoke and fire darted 

 upwards, and then with a horrible noise the sum- 

 mit fell piece by piece into the abysses of the volcano. 

 On the following day four daring mountaineers 

 ventured to make the ascent. They found the sur- 

 face of the soil depressed round the crater, and all the 

 openings which before had surrounded it engulfed 

 and swallowed up, while the orifice whose circum- 

 ference had formerly not exceeded three miles, now 

 measured double that length.* 



The torrent of lava which had issued from the 

 Monti Rossi still continued its course in a southerly 

 direction. Its different branches reached a length 

 of nearly four miles. Each day new streams of 

 liquid fire flowed over the substances that had been 

 partially solidified since the previous night, thus 

 widening the beds of the different streams which en- 

 croached upon the various islands of land that had 

 been temporarily spared. Already the villages of Bel- 

 passo, San Pietro, Camporotundo and Misterbianco 

 had been almost entirely destroyed, while their rich 



* The measurements given by Recupero are probably somewhat 

 exaggerated. 



