106 /. W. Jitdd — On Volcanos. 



The southern and extinct portions of the island of Vulcano were 

 inhabited and cultivated at a very early period. But during many 

 of the more violent eruptions, which shook the whole island and 

 covered it with thick deposits of ashes, the inhabitants would doubt- 

 less be driven away. This was certainly the case during the violent 

 outbursts of the 18th century, when the island appears to have been 

 wholly uninhabitable. At what period the people of Lipari found 

 that the neighbouring volcano constituted, in its abundant chemical 

 deposits, a great source of wealth, is not known. It is said, however, 

 that at one time the collecting of these valuable products was 

 abandoned, on account of the alleged injury done to the vines of 

 Lipari by the sulphurous vapours. On the work being resumed by 

 permission of the King of Sicily, furnaces for the purification of the 

 sulphur are said to have been established in the Fossa Anticcha. The 

 great accession of activity beneath the mountain, which heralded 

 the series of outbursts of last century, made itself felt by an increase 

 of heat in the soil, and abundant disengagements of suffocating gases, 

 and this once more caused the cessation of the industry. As the 

 terrors produced by the grand eruption of 1786 died away, and 

 the crater began to gradually cool down, the inhabitants regained 

 boldness sufficient to enable them again to visit the crater habitually, 

 and at last to form habitations for themselves near the tempting but 

 dangerous source of wealth, by excavating miserable homes in the 

 old tuff cone of the Faraglione. 



After the work of extracting the various chemical products had 

 been carried on in a desultory manner for a considerable time, the 

 crater was purchased a few years ago by a Glasgow firm for the sum 

 of £8000, and regular chemical works established in the island. The 

 collecting and preparation of the materials for exportation now em- 

 ploys about a hundred workmen, the whole of whom are Italians; but 

 the necessary capital and machinery for carrying on the operations 

 are supplied from this country. 



Since the last grand eruption, and the lapse of the volcano into 

 comparative tranquillity, its crater has been visited and examined by 

 many geologists. Dr. Daubeny, who visited the island in 1824, 

 observes : 



" The operations of this volcano appear to be going on with much 

 greater vigour than those of the Solfatara, and exhibit, perhaps, the 

 nearest approximation to a state of activity during which a descent 

 into the crater would have been practicable. 



" Nor can I imagine a spectacle of more solemn grandeur than 

 that presented by its interior, or conceive a spot better calculated 

 to excite in a superstitious age that religious awe which caused the 

 island to be considered sacred to Vulcan, and the various caverns 

 below as the peculiar residence of the god. 



" To me, I confess, the united effect of the silence and solitude of 

 the spot, the depth of the internal cavity, its precipitous and over- 

 hanging sides, and the dense sulphurous smoke, which, issuing from 

 all the crevices, throws a gloom over every object, proved more im- 

 pressive than the view of the reiterated explosions of Stromboli, 

 contemplated from a distance, and in open day." 



