12 MOUNTAINS. 
Hence the green earth, and wiM resonndiug waves ; 
Hence light and shade, alternate ; warmth and cold ; 
And bright autumnal skies, and vernal showers, 
And all the fair variety of tilings. Akensidb, 
The most sublime object, however, which the summit 
of Etna presents, is die immense mass of its own colossal 
body. Its upper region exhibits rough and craggy cliffs, 
rising pei-pendicularly, fearful to die view, and surrounded 
by an as.semblage of fugitive clouds, to increase the wiki 
variety of the scene. Amid the multitude of woods in the 
middle or temperate region, are numerous mountains, 
which, in any other situation, would appear of a gigantic 
size, bat which, compared to Etna, are mere mole-liills. 
Lastly, the eye contemplates widi admiration the lower re- 
gion, the most extensive of the three, adorned with elegant 
villas and castles, verdant hills and floweiy fields, and ter- 
minated by the extensive coast, where, to die south, stands 
the beautiful city of Catania, to which the waves of the 
neighbouring sea serve as a mirror. 
Etna has been celebrated as a volcano from the remotest 
antiquity. Eruptions are recorded by Diodorus Siculus ns 
having happened 500 years before the Trojan war, or i6g3 
years before the Christian era. 
lEtna roais with dreadful niin.s nigh, 
Now hurls a bursting cloud of cinders liigli, 
Involved in smoky wliirlwimls to the sky ; 
With loud displosioii to the starry frame, 
Shoots fiery globes, and furious floods of flame : 
Now from her bellowing caverns hurst away ■ 
Vas-t piles of melted rocks in open day. 
Her shattered entrails wide the mountain throws. 
And deep as hell her flaming centre glows. 
Varton 
In 1 66g, the toment of burning lava inundated a space 
fourteen miles in lengthy and four in orcadih, bur}niig 
beneath it a part of Catania, till at length it precipitated 
itself into the sea. For several months before die lava 
broke out, die old mouth, or great crater of the sumnii,, 
was observed to send forth much smoke and flame, aud 
the top had fallen in, so that the mountain was much 
Icrwered. 
Eighteen days before, the skv was very thick and dark. 
