Earthquakes in Sicilif. 33-3 



"which till this time, and during the agitations of Madonia, had 

 remained perfectly calm, became convulsed with earthquakes. 

 They accompanied the eruption. 



With the extinction of the conflagration in August, all the 

 phenomena ceased, and the earth was no longer agitated. 

 But in 1822 ^tna showed that the fermentation within its 

 furnaces was again at work. On the 5th of April, rumblings 

 and continued explosions were heard, which were followed 

 by great clouds of smoke violently driven from the crater by 

 the impetuous current of elastic vapours. A shower of sul- 

 phurous ashes fell all around. On the 6th a violent shock 

 convulsed all the towns between ^tna and Madonia, Ca- 

 pizzi, Cesara, Sperlinga, Troina, Gangi, Gagliano ; but in the 

 midst of these, Nicosia seemed the centre of impulse in all 

 the shocks which followed throughout the month. Its soil 

 appeared on the point of being torn up by force, many 

 buildings were destroyed, and its inhabitants fled in con- 

 sternation to find an asylum in the country. The immense 

 clouds of smoke and earthy ashes which were ejected from 

 June to October J which covered the more lofty part of tho 

 mountain with a gray stratum ; which filled the atmosphere, 

 and gave out through the whole region a strong odour of sul- 

 phur, clearly prove that all these commotions were produced 

 by forces collected in the recesses of -^tna.* 



*From June to October, 1822, ^tna emitted great quantities of vol- 

 canic ashes which were scattered all over the mountain ; on the plain 

 about the crater it fell to the depth of a foot. From the mouth of the 

 crater, and through fissures near the mouth, so dense a smoke, and such 

 copious streams of aqueous vapour were given out, that when they were 

 condensed by the lower temperature of the air, the ground about these 

 orifices was drenched with water. The vapour which was still suspend- 

 ed by the caloric imparted to it by that already condensed, fell soon after 

 in the form of a brine, acidified by the mixture of sulphurous vapour 

 contained in the smoke, and to which was owing the odour of sulphur 

 given out by the ashes wherever it fell. All the ashes about the crater 

 were saturated with this brine. The vapour of water is always' found in 

 the smoke of iEtna, but in much greater quantities at the time of an 

 eruption. In my relation of that of 1792, I mentioned, that at a little 

 distance from the crater a new orifice was made by the force of the va- 

 pour, from which for a long time, pieces of old lava, and scorias, and ar- 

 gillaceous earth saturated with water, were ejected; that standing there 

 to observe it, I was continually bathed in the brine which fell from the 

 smoke. This phenomenon of iEtna in 1822 has been much altered in 

 foreign Journals, which say, that in the recent eruptions of iEtna, the 

 earth opened at a great distance from the crater, and that a muddy sub- 

 stance which is not lava, was thrown out. As this important error, shdultif 



Vol. IX.— 'No. 2. 30 



