VOLCANOES. 227 



be produced.* A volcano, properly so called, exists only where 

 a permanent connection is established between the interior of 

 the earth and the atmosphere, and the reaction of the interior 

 on the surface then continues during long periods of time. It 

 may be interrupted for centuries, as in the case of Vesuvius, 

 Fisove,t and then manifest itself with renewed activity. In 

 the time of Nero, men were disposed to rank -^tna among 

 the volcanic mountains which were gradually becoming ex- 

 tinct ;t and subsequently ^lian§ even maintained that mar- 

 iners could no longer see the sinking summit of the mountain 

 from so great a distance at sea. Where these evidences — 

 these old scaffoldings of eruption, I might almost say — still 

 exist, the volcano rises from a crater of elevation, while a high 

 rocky wall surrounds, like an amphitheater, the isolated con- 

 ical mount, and forms around it a kind of casing of highly ele- 



* Leopold von Bucli, Phys. Beschreib'ifng der Canarischen Inseln, s. 

 326 ; and his Memoir uher Erhebungscratere und Vulcane, in Poggend., 

 Annal., bd. xxxvii., s. 169. 



In his remarks on the separation of Sicily from Calabria, Strabo gives 

 an excellent description of the two modes in w^hich islands are formed: 

 "Some islands," he observes (lib. vi., p. 258, ed. Casaub.), "are frag 

 ments of the continent, others have arisen from the sea, as even at the 

 present time is known to happen; for the islands of the great ocean, 

 lying far from the main land,. have j*obably been raised from its depths, 

 while, on the other hand, those near promontories appear (according to 

 reason) to have been separated from the continent." 



t Ocre Fisove (Mens Vesuvius) in the Umbrian language. (Lassen, 

 Deutung der Eugubinischcn Tafeln in Rhein. Museum, 1832, s. 387.) 

 The word ochre is very probably genuine Umbrian, and means, accord- 

 ing to Festus, mountain. Mtna. would be a burning and shining mount- 

 ain, if Voss is correct in stating that AItvt) is an Hellenic sound, and is 

 connected with aWu and aldtvog ; but the intelligent writer Parthey 

 doubts this Hellenic origin on etymological grounds, and also because 

 ^tna was by no means regarded as a luminous beacon for ships or 

 wanderers, in the same manner as the ever-travailing Stromboli (Stron- 

 gyle), to which Homer seems to refer in the Odyssey (xii., 68, 202, 

 and 219), and its geographical position was not so well determined. I 

 suspect that ^tua would be found to be a Sicilian word, if we had any 

 fragmentaiy materials to refer to. According to Diodorus (v., 6), the 

 Sicani, or aborigines preceding the Sicilians, were compelled to fly to 

 the westei'n part of the island, in consequence of successive eruptions 

 extending over many years. The most ancient eruption of Mount ^Etna 

 on record is that mentioned by Pindar and jEschylus, as occurring un- 

 der Hiero, in the second year of the 75th Olympiad. It is probable 

 that Hesiod was aware of the devastating eruptions of ^tna before the 

 period of Greek immigration. There is, however, some doubt regard- 

 ing the word AItvtj in the text of Hesiod, a subject into which I hava 

 entered at some length in another place. (Humboldt, Examen Crit 

 4e le Geogr., t. i., p. 168.) 



t Seneia, Epist., 79. $ iElian, Var. Hist., viii.. 1 1 



