,[ 1 *• 1 
from the middle region, the inflamed matter finding 
(as I fuppofe) its paffage through Tome weak part, 
long before it can rife to the excefiive height of the 
upper region, the great mouth on the fummit only 
ferving as a common chimney to the volcano. In 
many places the fnow is covered with a bed of afhes, 
thrown out of the crater, and the fun melting it in 
fome parts makes this ground treacherous j but as 
we had with, us, befides our guide, a peafant well 
accuftomed to thefe valleys, we arrived fafe at the 
foot of the little mountain of afhes that crowns 
Etna, about an hour before the lifing of the fun. 
This mountain is fituated in a gently inclining plain, 
of about nine miles in circumference ; it is about a 
quarter of a tpile perpendicular in height, very deep, 
but not quite fo deep as Vefuvius ; it has been 
thrown up within thefe twenty-five or thirty years, 
as many people at Catania have told me they re- 
membered when there was only a large chafm or 
crater, in the mid ft of the abovementioned plain. 
Till now the afcent had been fo gradual (for the 
top of Etna is not lefs than thirty miles from Catania, 
from whence the afcent begins) as not to have been 
the leaft fatiguing j and if it had not been for the 
fnow, we might have rode upon our mules to the 
very foot of the little mountain, higher than which 
the canon our guide had never been : but as I faw 
that this little mountain was compofed in the fame 
manner as the top of Vefuvius, which, notwithftand- 
ing the fmoak ifiuing from every pore, is lolid and 
firm, I made no fcruple of going up to the edge of 
the crater, and my companions followed. The deep 
afcent, the keennefs of the air, the vapours of the 
C 2- fulphur. 
