22 
Hobbs.—Notes on a Trip to the Lipari Islands . 
The modern town is erected around the fort and contains ware¬ 
houses, where are stored for shipment the products of the island — the 
finest pumice stone, sulphur, currants, figs, Malmsey wine, etc. The 
vegetation is semi-tropical. Outside of the town the opuntia or prickly 
pear is abundant. Figs, agaves and grapes thrive. The great difficulty 
the inhabitants have to meet is the scarcity of water, which they collect 
for domestic purposes on their peculiar flat-roofed houses. For this 
reason oranges and lemons, so abundant in neighboring Sicily, are not 
cultivated here. The population was formerly much larger than at 
present, many of the natives having emigrated to America. As a conse¬ 
quence the price of a day’s labor, which I was informed was a few years 
since about a lire (20 cents), has risen to about twice that sum. The 
Lipari islands lie somewhat off the line of tourist travel. Except by 
naturalists w T ho are interested in their volcanic features, the islands are 
rarely visited, both because of the difficulty in reaching them and be¬ 
cause of the primitive character of the accommodations. 
The chief interest then of the traveler in these Islands lies in the 
volcanoes, and particularly the active vents, Stromboli and Volcano. 
The map has been prepared to show the relation of these vents to 
one another and to the other volcanoes of Italy. First of all it will 
be seen from the map how the vents are arranged linearly. It will next 
