THE COASTS OF SICILY. 123 



sures were found to exhibit different levels; hence 

 the soil must either have been raised on one side, or 

 depressed on the other. 



Many other phenomena might be adduced to 

 prove that even in the highest parts of the volcano, 

 the internal agents may produce phenomena of up- 

 heaval, but we will here limit ourselves to a positive 

 example, which has been taken from the narrative of 

 an eye-witness. During the eruption of 1688 there 

 appeared in the highest part of the volcano, accord- 

 ing to the statement of the Padre Massa, a large 

 cupola of perfectly white snow, which rivalled in 

 extent the domes of our largest churches, and in 

 brilliancy the marbles of Faros and of Carara. 

 Recupero justly adds, that this cupola must have 

 resulted from some violent outburst of subterranean 

 fire, which had raised and curved the superficial 

 strata of soil that were at the time covered with 

 snow.* We ought, moreover, to observe that these 



* These dome-shaped upheavals, which are the direct result of an 

 internal action, which, however, was not powerful enough to break 

 the upheaved strata, were known to the ancients. Strabo and 

 Pausanias have left us details regarding a phenomenon of this nature, 

 which happened 282 years before our era, between Troezen and 

 Epidaurus, and gave rise to the hill of Methone. Baron von 

 Humboldt, from whom we borrow this fact, cites in his Cosmos, the 

 verses in which Ovid recorded and explained this event, and he 

 draws attention to the fact, that modern science fully justifies the 

 description of the Latin poet. The following is the condensed 

 abstract which Baron von Humboldt gives of this passage of Ovid: 

 " Near Troezen, is a tumulus, steep and devoid of trees, once a 

 plain, now a mountain. The vapours, enclosed in dark caverns, in 

 vain seek a passage by which they may escape ; the heaving earth, 

 inflated by the force of the compressed vapours, expands like a 

 bladder filled with air, or like a goat's skin. The ground has 



