132 
VEGETATION IN DESEETS. 
becomes productive. George Sandy s, who visited this latter 
mountain in 1611, after it had reposed for several centuries, 
found the throat of the volcano at the bottom of the crater 
“ almost choked with broken rocks and trees that are falne 
therein.’’ “ Next to this,” he continues, “ the matter thrown 
up is ruddy, light, and soft: more removed, blacke and pon¬ 
derous : the uttermost brow, that declineth like the seates in a 
theater, flourishing with trees and excellent pasturage. The 
midst of the hill is shaded with chestnut trees, and others 
bearing sundry fruits.” * 
I am convinced that forests would soon cover many parts 
of the Arabian and African deserts, if man and domestic ani¬ 
mals, especially the goat and the camel, were banished from 
them. The hard palate and tongue and strong teeth and jaws 
of this latter quadruped enable him to break off and masticate 
tough and thorny branches as large as the finger. He is par¬ 
ticularly fond of the smaller twigs, leaves, and seedpods of 
the sont and other acacias, which, like the American Robinia, 
which, for almost two centuries, lay entirely bare, and can be made to 
grow plants only by artificial mixtures and much labor. 
The increase in the price of wines, in consequence of the diminution of 
the product from the grape disease, however, has brought even these ashes 
under cultivation. “I found,” says Waltershausen, referring to the years 
1861—’62, “plains of volcanic sand and half-subdued lava streams, which, 
twenty years ago lay utterly waste, now covered with fine vineyards. The 
ashfield of ten square miles above Nicolosi, created by the eruption of 1669, 
which was entirely barren in 1835, is now planted with vines almost to 
the summits of Monte Rosso, at a height of three thousand feet.”— TJeber 
den Sicilianischen Ackerbau , p. 19. 
* A Relation of a Journey Begun An. Bom. 1610, lib. 4, p. 260, edition 
of 1627. The testimony of Sandys on this point is confirmed by that of 
Pighio, Braccini, Magliocco, Salimbeni, and Nicola di Rubeo, all cited by 
Roth, Der Yesuv ., p. 9. There is some uncertainty about the date of the 
last eruption previous to the great one of 1631. Ashes, though not lava, 
appear to have been thrown out about the year 1500, and some chroniclers 
have recorded an eruption in the year 1306 ; but this seems to be an error 
for 1036, when a great quantity of lava was ejected. In 1139, ashes were 
thrown out for many days. I take these dates from the work of Roth 
just cited. 
