270 Notice of Active and Extinct Volconos. 



terrific, as to have led him to describe them as placed at the ut- 

 most limits of the habitable world, unenlightened either by the 

 rising or setting sun, and with groves consecrated to Proserpine, 

 rivers with streams of fire, and enveloped in an eternal gloom. 

 These ideas would be confirmed, if we imagine that the Cimme- 

 rians, who first peopled the country, lived in those caverns and 

 hollows of the rock which now exist, and were thus by the very 

 nature of their habitation shut out from the light of day. 



" Such a picture indeed accords very little with the ideas sug- 

 gested by the luxuriance of modern Campania ; but it must be 

 recollected, that at the time when Homer wrote, that luxuriance 

 had not yet been developed by cultivation, that the recent occur- 

 rence of the eruptions had probably devoted many parts to a tem- 

 porary sterility, and that others were overshadowed with thick 

 and gloomy forests." 



Procida and Ischia, islands contiguous to this coast are 

 composed of volcanic materials ; but the only immediate 

 proof of volcanic action is the temperature of 110° of Fah- 

 renheit, which is found in the sand, two feet below the surface 

 at Monte Vico, and the hot vapor which in many places in 

 that neighborhood issues from the ground. 



The fiorite or hyalite appears to arise from the action of 

 the steam upon the fissures through which it passes, and simi- 

 lar facts have been observed at the Solfatara at Santa Fiora 

 in Tuscany, at Teneriffe and Lanzerote and at the Geysers. 



The Lipari Islands, lying between Naples and Sicily, form 

 both a geographical and a geological connexion between the 

 volcanic systems of the two countries. 



Stromboli has already been mentioned as a volcano which 

 is incessantly active. The crater is on the side of the hill and 

 rising at a great angle immediately on the margin of the sea, 

 most of the ejections tumble into the water. 



" I reached with considerable difficulty the summit of the 

 mountain, which, rises at an angle often of nearly 40°, and is 

 covered completely with volcanic sand, consisting of titaniferous 

 iron, amongst which I found numerous crystals of augite, and 

 masses of black pumice, or of an highly scoriform and fibrous 

 description of lava, which seems to approach nearly to that min- 

 eral. 



" On looking down from that elevation upon the volcano, I per- 

 ceived that its minor explosions were in general almost continu- 

 ous, but that the greater ones, which alone were audible below, 

 take place at intervals of about seven minutes. The latter were 



