HIGH LANDS OF THE EARTH. 



213 



current pours forth a burning torrent of smoke, but by night, the red flame, rolling along 

 masses of rock, plunges them with loud crash into the surface of the sea. That monster 



Mount Etna from Syracuse. 



sends up such horrid streams of Hephaestus (Vulcan) a sight wonderful to look on ; 

 wonderful, too, to hear of from those who have seen it." Etna, when viewed from a distance, 

 appears a very symmetrical cone, but there are upwards of eighty minor yet conspicuous 

 cones upon its sides. At the last eruption, which occurred in November 1832, the moun- 

 tain sent forth a stream of lava eighteen miles long including its windings, a mile broad, 

 and thirty feet thick, which approached within two miles of the town of Bronte, and 

 threatened it with destruction. 



In addition to this general outline of extensive volcanic regions, there are isolated 

 spots where similar phenomena are displayed. The Peak of Teneriffe, in the Canary 

 Islands, is an imposing volcano, with its highest crater apparently sealed up, but lateral 

 eruptions are of recent date. Iceland, Jan Mayen, and the south coast of Greenland, 

 constitute a considerable volcanic system. 



Fatal to human life as the eruptions of the volcano have occasionally been, large views 

 of such physical events will awaken impressions at variance with those which their 

 detached observation often excite. He who, living on the slopes of Vesuvius, witnesses 

 his vine-clad dwelling, or his native village, overwhelmed with the lava and ashes of the 

 mountain, is apt to become exclusively occupied with the disaster, and will not readily 

 reflect upon the many millions of mankind who enjoy a quiet habitation, and whose 

 locality has never been disturbed within the period that history and tradition have 

 chronicled such occurrences. Yet nothing is more true than that the same agency which 

 is occasionally destructive in a few spots upon the world's expanse, has operated in 

 forming or upheaving the universal crust of the globe, and has thus been the means of 

 building up sure resting places for unnumbered myriads of the human family. It is that 

 protruding or elevating power also that has rendered the coal formations and mineral veins 



P 3 



