94 
THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
former one. Long lines of bold precipitous cliffs 
many hundreds of feet high are prevalent on the 
south and east sides of the island, clearly marking 
the considerable wear of the coast line, while at 
the northern extremity the ground slopes gently 
towards the sea, and thus we are prepared to find 
that the depth of vcater in the lilliputian port is 
only about two fathoms in mid channel, just suffi- 
cient for small coasting and fishing craft to take 
shelter behind the Eastern point. 
This remote corner of Europe is the home of 
7178 persons, who are well nigh unknown to the 
rest of humanity, and who know still less of the 
world themselves, with the rise and fall of emp- 
ires. to care to rack their brains with the bock 
learning of their fellow men, or trouble themselves 
with inquiring into such superfluous matters as 
steam machinery or electric lighting. Pantelleria 
town has 3167 souls; the remaining 4148 inhabi- 
tants are divided among five scattered groups of 
country cottages, rather than villages, for as “Judah 
and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine 
and his fig tree” in the days of King Solomon, 
(I Kings, chapt. 25), so it literally now is with the 
Pantellerians under king Humbert, viz: — Khamma 
1374; Scauri 1319; Napolicibile 510; Margana 596; 
Bugeber 349. Administratively all belong to the 
commune of Pantelleria, which forms part ol the 
province of Trapani. 
The tracks used by the Pantellerians have been 
preserved with the most religious care in the pre- 
cise condition in which they were long before the 
glorious days of Carthage, which rose almost in 
sight of the island; and in jolting along these rough 
stony places it needs to be lamentably devoid of 
all the pleasures of inspiration not to have proud 
visions of the good old times when Mother Earth 
was some 3000 years younger than she is now, and 
had been drenched with the life’s blood of some 
billions less of her sons, pitted in mortal strife 
agains peach other for no purpose but the wanton 
pleasure of destruction. .Descending from these 
heights, the matter of fact geologist gets easily 
reconciled to the slight inconveniences of the way, 
finding a splendid race of large asses to ride upon 
similar to those of Egypt, as he passes, hammer in 
hand, through vineyards and plantations of cotton, 
capers and other vegetation, grown on the rich 
decomposing volcanic soil, and freely alternating 
wfith a variety of lithological forms of eruptive 
rock, here scoriaceous, further on massive or cel- 
lular, m some cases rough to the touch, elsewhere 
so like the prosaic refuse heaps of some common 
black bottle works as to require close inspection 
in order to disillusionize him. 
To the best of my knowledge no eruption of 
this volcano is recorded during historic times, but 
it is evident that the numerous prehistoric erup- 
tions which took place in succession emanated not 
only from the centre crater, as generally happens 
with Vesuvius, but likewise fron numerous lateral 
vents, now forming the various minor eminences 
met with in various parts of the island. But 
it would not at all surprise us should an eruption 
of considerable local importance break out here at 
some later date, seeing that to a certain extent 
much analogy of constitution may be traced be- 
tween the islands of Pantelleria, Lipari with its 
satellite Vulcan o, and Ischia, in the two latter of 
w hich islands we know of more than one recorded 
eruption during historic times, although many 
authors seem to be disposed to classify them 
among extinct volcanoes. 
In order to complete this rapid sketch of Pan- 
telleria, ofl* the coast of which a submarine erup- 
tion took place last October, preceded by earth- 
quake shocks it will be useful to say a few words 
about the general configuration of the bed of the 
African Sea in this neighbourhood, between the 
coasts of Sicily and Tunisia. 
In a direct line the distance by sea from Pantel- 
leria to the nearest point in Sicily is 53 miles; 
to Africa it is only 34 miles. For a distance of 
9 miles towards Sicily the greatest depth of water 
is from 130 to 240 fathoms, and in one spot it 
even reaches 315 fathoms. Further on towards 
Sicily the 100 fathom contour line, the deepest 
measurement found in that direction, embraces a 
wide area, the depth diminishing to the 50 fathom 
contour line as we proceed onwards from 3 to 5 
miles. A slight upheaval of the bed of the sea of 
only 40 fathoms would convert the Adventure 
Bank, situated at about 40 miles from Pantelleria 
towards Marsala, into a long island, larger even 
than Pantelleria itself, measuring 14 miles long 
from N. E. to S. W. by 3 miles broad, and 
rising but slightly under 200 feet above the sea 
level. 
