50 
years was 105° Fahrenheit (31° Reaumur), 
and the extreme cold, during the same pe- 
riod, 34° Fahrenheit, or + 0 9° Reaumur. 
The average number of rainy days are 
sixty-five in the year; the mean quantity 
of rain, 21,149 English inches. 
At Catania, as might be expected from its 
site on the southern declivity of the moun- 
tain, the mean temperature is considerably 
higher than at Palermo, viz. 68° Fahrenheit, 
or 16° Reaumur; July is the hottest, and 
January the coldest month; while the num- 
ber of wet days amount to sixty-three annu- 
ally; though last year there was no rain 
m the beginning of May to the 1st Sep- 
tember. The West wind is the driest, and 
the East wind is always moist, invariably 
bringing rain in winter. 
Very little corn is cultivated in the lower 
region of Etna; the ground being rocky 
there are but few spots suited to its cul- 
ture. The common fodder for cattle in 
Sicily is barley, both in the green state 
and the threshed grain. Oats are nearly 
unknown, so that even horses are fed on 
barley, as at the time of the Trojan war. 
Wheat is also cultivated, but only as far 
up the mountain as 1,600; à limit much 
beneath that which is assigned to it by 
nature. Maize is little grown in Sicily, 
and scarcely at all on. Etna. Every kind 
of vegetable succeeds in this region, espe- 
cially cabbage, lettuce, artichokes, gourd, 
cumber, peas, beans, both the broad and 
French kinds, Phaseolus vulgaris and 
Cajan, and lupines, the seeds of Lupinus 
thermis. The latter are particularly the 
food of the poor, who frequently eat the 
green pods of Vicia Faba raw, and the ma 
ripe beans without any kind of preparation, 
except roasting them a little in the ashes. 
The /upines are put into salt, or in sea- 
water, to soak for twenty-four hours, by 
which means they lose their disagreeable 
3 bitterness, and are then eaten without 
cooking. Among fruit-trees, the fig, pome- 
granate, almond, and pistachio, are most 
cultivated. Walnut-trees are rare, but 
ae ee "guide in es quantities as 
* to fo ( x S 
ON THE VEGETATION OF ETNA. 
ever there is water, those lovely fruits of 
the favoured southern clime, the orange, 
lemon, and hme, are produced in great 
abundance and numberless varieties. Their 
limit may be taken at 1,900 feet, since at 
Nicolosi, 2,184 feet, they are sometimes 
killed by the frost. The date is not found 
higher than Aderno and Trecastagne, 1,680 
feet above the level of the sea; and though 
its fruit is always set in Sicily, it seldom 
attains perfection, though in good years 
the seeds are so ripe as to vegetate. There 
is a beautiful date palm in the Botanic 
Garden at Palermo, raised from seed ri- 
pened in Sicily, and sowed fourteen years 
since ; its stem is now 10 feet high. The 
Jig bears excellent fruit so high as Nicolo- 
si, 2,200 feet, and perhaps at a still greater 
elevation; in that place are beautiful trees 
of Celtis australis, called in Sicily Ment- 
coccu and of the Stone Pine (Pinus Pinea), 
which latter only grows singly and in a 
cultivated state, in the kingdom of Naples. 
e sugar-cane is not seen in the gardens 
of Etna, though frequent at Avola, &c.; 
nor is the Rhus Coriaria, of which the 
culture yearly increases, grown at all at 
Etna. On the other hand, the cotton plant, 
Gossypium herbaceum, is sown plentifully 
on the shores of the Simeto, and its pro- 
duce is of such excellent quality as to 
rank with that of Louisiana for snowy 
whiteness: it even succeeds at an altitude 
of 1,000—1,200 feet above the sea. The 
great Italian Reed (Arundo. Donaz), 
whose arborescent stem and broad leaves 
recall to mind the tropical bamboo, is in 
frequent cultivation for the purpose of 
king stakes for vineyards, and in various 
other ways; and together with the mul- 
berry (Morus nigra), of which the foliage 
nourishes the silk-worm, to the exclusion 
of the rarer M. alba, is seen at an eleva- 
tion of 2,500 feet. There, too, the olive 
grows, though the greater part of this re- 
gion is dedicated to the vine( Vitis vinifera) 
which throughout Sicily is trained to stakes 
of Arundo Donaz, and not to trees, as in 
Lombardy and Naples. The limit of the 
vine is 3,300 feet. On the roughest lava | 
thrives the Indian or Prickly Pear (ne ; 
