J. W. Judd — On Volcanos. 57 



outline and that vividness of colouring which only the brilliancy of an 

 almost tropical sky can impart, constitute scenery of startling novelty 

 and wondrous beauty — the impressions produced by which it is as 

 hopeless to convey as it is impossible to forget. Nor is the geologist 

 disappointed by a nearer approach to these remarkable scenes ; every 

 blow of his hammer revealing fresh examples of singular rock- 

 structure, novel groupings of crystallized minerals, and lively illus- 

 trations of the multiform products which result from the action on 

 rock-masses of the ever-varying combinations of many forces, — such 

 as heat, chemical affinity, crystallization, pressure, tension, and the 

 disengagement of imprisoned vapour and gas. 



But before entering on a description of some of these remarkably 

 interesting volcanic cones and lava- streams, composed of pumice and 

 glass respectively, it will be well to pause in order to notice the very 

 striking linear arrangement affected by the volcanic vents belonging 

 to both the second and the third periods of igneous action in these 

 islands. For nowhere, perhaps, is this constant feature of the de- 

 velopment of volcanic forces — so unmistakably suggestive of the 

 existence of subterranean fissures — more admirably and clearly 

 illustrated than in the Lipari Islands. 



Commencing with the southern part of the Island of Vulcano (see 

 map, p. 7), the observer, standing on the summit of the Monte 

 Saraceno, will have no difficulty in perceiving that there lie before 

 him the remains of at least four different volcanic cones and craters, 

 which have been successively formed through the continued shifting 

 of the eruptive vent to more northerly positions. The great 

 central cone of Vulcano, with its magnificent active crater, is 

 evidently thrown up on a continuation of the same line. But an 

 attentive study of this cone and crater-ring clearly indicates to the 

 geologist that they are not the product of a stationary vent ; on the 

 contrary, we find clear evidence that the cone has been more than 

 once partially destroyed by explosion and its crater re-formed. 

 Indeed, portions of at least three successive crater-rings, which 

 must have been clearly excentric with one another, can be easily 

 traced. It is interesting to notice that the last eruption of this 

 volcano (which, as will be described in a future chapter, took place 

 only a year ago) threw up cinder-cones at the bottom of its great 

 crater, not, however, at its centre, but at its extreme northern limit. 



Again, we have proofs of the opening of a vent, still a little farther 

 to the north, in the actual walls of the great cone, in the beautiful 

 little crater called the Fossa Antico. The Faraglione, situated 

 between Vulcano and Vulcanello, is a mass of volcanic agglomerates, 

 in which mineral deposits of great beauty and value have been 

 developed, in consequence of the permeation of the mass by acid 

 gases and vapours ; it is now burrowed over, like a rabbit warren, 

 by the excavations which serve as houses for the workmen employed 

 in the chemical works in the adjoining great crater ; this mass of 

 tuffs is clearly the greatly denuded and ruined vestige of a cinder- 

 cone. Thus we find that in the island of Vulcano there exists 

 evidence of the opening, along a single line> of at least nine different 



