126 ON CERTAIN RECENT CHANGES IN THE CRATER OF STROMBOLI. 
On November 17, 1882, and following days, a severe eruption took 
place. Towards the commencement there was an explosion more severe 
than any remembered by the inhabitants, and five new bocche opened on 
the north-west slope of the Sciara, about 100 metres below the usually 
active crater. Bed-hot stones were thrown on to the southern slopes of 
the mountain, and one weighing several tons as far as Ginostra. On 
November 27 the eruption was so severe that the inhabitants thought 
of emigrating. No lava-flow took place. Mercali contrasts this fact 
with the usual sequence of events on Etna and Vesuvius.* 
On February 25, 1888, there was a severe earthquake on Stromboli, 
and others on March 21 and May 22. They were local, and not felt on 
the other islands. Mercali concludes that they were connected with 
the local volcanic activity, although the eruptions continued with their 
usual degree of intensity, and that they were different from the Cala¬ 
brian earthquakes. Such local earthquakes are common in the Lipari 
islands. 
Mercali visited Stromboli in September, 1888, and found a single 
active crater. In February, 1889, he found the crater more active and 
notably changed. The bocca active in September, 1888, was now 
quiet and in a fumarolic condition, and three new bocche had opened on 
the edge of the Sciara, one of which gave eruptions with a rhythm 
independent of the others. 
In June, 1891, Profs. A. Eicco, of Catania, and G. Mercali, of 
Naples, visited the island and embodied their observations in a 
valuable memoir f from which the plan is copied by permission, and 
the nomenclature and numbering of the bocche adopted by them has 
also been followed throughout this paper. 
They found a large crater, No. 1, corresponding to that described 
above by myself in 1888, and figured in Plate II., and four smaller bocche 
on or about its northern edge at the lip of the Sciara. Bocche Nos. 2 and 
3, towards the eastern side of the crater, were considered to be situated 
on one radial fissure, and they appear to correspond in position to the 
smoking cone of 1888, and to the fumarolic area observed in the same 
region in 1904. Bocche Nos. 4 and 5, towards the western portion of 
the crater, are described as situated on another radial fissure. They 
correspond in position to the cone from which the explosive eruptions 
took place in 1888, and to the bocche from which similar explosions 
still took place in 1904. 
The writers also describe and mark three streams of lava, ii., iii., iv., 
* Mercali, op. cit., vol. 27, 1881. 
f ‘ Sopra il Periodo Eruttivo dello Stromboli, Relazione dei Professori A. Ricco e G. 
Mercali con appendice del Ingegnere S. Arcidiacono estratto dagli Annali dell’ 
Uffizio centrale Meteorologico e Geodinamico,’ Serie 2, Parte iii. vol. 11, 1889. Roma : 
Tip. dell’ unione Coop., edit. 1892. 
