192 
ERUPTION OF iETNA. 
After overflowing 14 towns and villages, some of 
them having a population of between 3000 and 4000 
inhabitants, the lava at length arrived at the walls 
of Catania. These had been raised on purpose to 
protect the city ; but the burning flood accumulated 
till it rose to the top of the rampart, which was 60 
feet in height, and then it fell in a fiery cascade and 
overwhelmed part of the city. Excavations still 
show the wall standing, and the lava curling over 
it as if in the very act of falling. After coursing 
15 miles farther, it entered the sea in a stream 600 
yards broad and 40 feet deep. While moving on, 
Ferrara describes its surface as appearing like a 
mass of solid rock, and its mode of advancement 
was by the occasional cracking or Assuring of the 
solid walls. A gentleman of Catania, desiring to 
secure the city from the approach of the threaten- 
ing torrent, went out with a party of 50 men, armed 
with iron hooks and crows. They broke open one 
of the solid walls which flanked the current, and 
immediately there issued forth a stream of melted 
matter, which took the direction of Palermo ; but 
the inhabitants of that town, being' alarmed for their 
safety, took up arms and put a stop to farther oper- 
ations. 
As a farther illustration of the solidity of the walls 
of an advancing lava stream, Recupero states that, 
in the year 1766, while standing on a small hill to 
behold the slow and gradual approach of a lava cur- 
rent two miles and a half broad, two srtiall threads 
of liquid matter, issuing from a crevice, detached 
themselves from the main stream and ran rapidlj' 
towards the hill. He and his guide had just time to 
escape, when they saw the hill, which was 50 feet 
high, surrounded, and in fifteen minutes melted 
down into the burning mass so as to flow on with 
it. 
In the year 1538, the town of Tripergola, near 
Puzzuoli, was destroyed by an eruptiouy whicb 
