242 Bonney— Modern Volcanoes in Central France. 
Sept. 21, Archdeacon Phillpotts cites the two passages which he 
believes to describe volcanic eruptions; and the following week the 
Bishop replies, quoting, in defence of his views, a letter of Professor 
Ansted, and translating the passages given by the Archdeacon in his 
own way. 
As it happened, I had at this very time just returned from a 
brief visit to Auvergne, and was engaged in investigating the same 
subject, quite unconscious of the debate then being carried on in the 
‘Guardian’ and in the ‘Daily News.’ I venture, therefore, before 
quoting and commenting on the passages which appear to bear 
upon the question, to offer a few remarks upon the above-named 
correspondence, which I have only lately read. 
Firstly, Mr. Garbett’s objection does not invalidate the Bishop’s 
argument, unless he can prove that all the cones of loose materials in 
Central France are ‘ post-Noachian.’ This, I imagine, he would 
find it hard to do. 
Secondly, Professor Ansted asserts that the ‘ whole of the volcanic 
phenomena (in Auvergne) are prehistoric,’ that this is the opinion 
of the best geologists, and can only be set aside by fresh geological 
evidence. This statement appears to me to be also rather question- 
able. No one, of course, for a moment doubts that the majority of 
the phenomena are prehistoric; but it is impossible to prove that all 
are. Some of the cones of scoriz, perhaps even some of the streams 
of lava, may have been ejected in comparatively recent times; and 
the question is really, except in one respect (to which allusion will 
presently be made), rather one for the historian than for the geolo- 
gist. Besides this, the proof must extend to other parts of Central 
France. 
The two passages which bear most directly upon the question are 
—one from a letter of Sidonius Apollinaris, Bishop of Clermont in 
Auvergne, about the year 460 a.p., to Claudianus Mamertus, who 
was Bishop of Vienne at the time of the supposed eruptions; the 
other from a homily on the ‘ Rogations,’ written by Alcimus Avitus, 
Archbishop of Vienne. 
The former, after describing the terror which an expected attack 
from the Goths was causing among his flock, goes on to say *— 
‘Our fears are soothed by the aid alone of the Rogations introduced by 
you, in the commencement and institution of which the people of Auvergne 
* 
‘Solo tamen inyectarum te auctore Rogationum palpamur auxilio, quibus in- 
choandis instituendisque populus Arvernus, etsi non effectu pari, affectu certe non 
impari ceepit initiari, et ob hoc circumfusis necdum dat terga terroribus. Non enim 
latet nostram sciscitationem, primis temporibus harumsce supplicationum instituta- 
rum, civitas ceelitus tibi credita, per hujuscemodi prodigiorum terriculamenta, 
vacuabatnr. Nam modo scenze menium publicorum crebris terres motibus concu- 
tiebantur: nunc ignes spe flammati caducas culminum cristas superjecto fayillarum 
monte tumulabant: nune stupenda foro cubilia collocabat audacium pavenda 
mansuetudo cervorum: cum tu inter ista decessu primorum populariumque statu 
urbis exinanito, ad nova celer veterum Ninivitarum exempla decurristi, ne divine 
admonitioni tua quoque desperatio conyitiaretur.—Sidon. Apoll., Epist. lib. yi. 
epaal 
