THE COASTS OF SICILY. 127 



this surface, which had previously been solid, was 

 in a state of fusion; and it was evident that the 

 blocks of lava on which we were standing, although 

 they were still joined together, formed only a simple 

 flooring, supported by this lake of fire, like a piece 

 of ice which is still connected with the shore. 



These appearances were indeed very different 

 from those which precede the great eruptions of 

 Etna. Nevertheless, the difference is more apparent 

 than real. The phenomena are fundamentally the 

 same, and differ only in the amount of their in- 

 tensity. The small cone of forty feet serves, like 

 the mountain of 10,000 feet, to give issue to the 

 internal agent, and to eject flame, gases, smoke, 

 sand, and scoriae. Each ejection was accompanied 

 by a noise proportionate to the energy of the sub- 

 terranean fires. The stream of lava which was 

 advancing towards us, at one time disturbed and 

 overthrew solid blocks, which lay in its passage, 

 and at other times upheaved and carried away with 

 it the fragments of these masses, which floated on 

 its surface like blocks of ice on a river which is 

 breaking up. 



It is evident that these disturbances of the strata 

 and these upheavals, which we may actually observe 

 in the crater of Vesuvius, must be reproduced on a 

 much larger scale in all great eruptions generally, 

 and in those of Etna more particularly. The cen- 

 tral elevation and the terminal cone which are 

 formed of strata which have been upheaved and 

 consequently broken at many points, and of move- 

 able materials which are simply accumulated toge- 



