History of Volcano. 
27 
eruption of 1788. After this eruption the mountain passed into the 
solfatara condition, or condition of moderate fumarole activity. The 
gases — boric acid, sulphur, sal ammoniac, etc. — were collected by the 
Italian firm of Nunziate and later by the English firm of Stevenson. 
The method of collecting was to pile cinder over the fumaroles so that 
the materials would sublime, then remove to the manufactories for further 
concentration. One of the manufactories was within the crater and the 
other on the shore of the Porto di Levante. The competition from Asia 
Minor and California resulted in the neglecting of the boric acid industry, 
but it was proposed to build large leaden chambers over the fumaroles for 
the better condensation of the sulphur gases, when the increasing activ¬ 
ity of the fumaroles interrupted the work. The light eruption which 
began in August, 1873, and ended in December, 1874, hai4 been described 
by Baltzer and presents many interesting features. Flames, once 
thought so common but now known to be extremely rare at volcanic 
eruptions, were observed in this instance. They showed a tinge of green, 
doubtless to be ascribed to boric acid. The most interesting feature, 
however, was the fall during the early stage of the eruption of a fine snow- 
white powder, which covered the island to a depth in some places of three 
to four centimetres. This was followed by a gray ash of the ordinary type, 
nothing more nor less than finely divided liparite lava. The snow-white 
ash, however, was 94 per cent, silica, and was shown to be tridymite by its 
low specific gravity, its solubility in alkalies and its optical behavior. Balt¬ 
zer has offered the plausible explanation that this material is formed dur¬ 
ing the long period of quiescence, by the action of the acid gases of the 
fumaroles on the plug and walls of the chimney under the high pressure 
and temperature which must attain there. This explanation accounts 
for the absence of the snow-white ash from the later phases of the 
eruption. (See Baltzer, Zeitsch. d. d. geol. Gesellschaft, 1875, pp. 3-29.) 
After this very light eruption, which was not violent enough to expel 
the workmen from the crater, the old conditions of fumarole activity 
were resumed. In 1886 there came a slight eruption which cleared out 
the bottom of the crater, since which time it has never entered into its 
former quiescent condition. Before 1888 the English firm owning the 
sulphur industry had set out large vineyards and fig orchards at the 
north end of the island. Mr. A. E. Narlian, who was in charge of these, 
had his villa a few hundred yards north of the cinder cone of Volcano. 
In August, 1888, occurred an outbreak which, though not to be ranked 
with eruptions of the first order of intensity, caused much damage. The 
main facts connected with this eruption were reported to us by Mr. 
Narlian at his home in Lipari. They were contained in a letter to Prof. 
Johnston-Lavis, and were published in the London Times and in the 
Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science for 
1888 (p. 664). 
