The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-06-07 00:00:00

MOUNT ETNA IN ERUPTION.

The inhabitants of Sicily are threatened with a repetition
of the disasters to which th,.ir islal has been subjected at
Intervals from time immemoral. Telegrams from Messina
inform us that the eruption is assuming vast proportions,
aud that a broad lava stream is pouring down the mountain
slopes in a fiery river, extending to a considerable.distance,
endangering the safety of villages, and doing much damage
to the fields, vineyards, and chestnut woods.—The Times of
Saturday gives an interesting leader on the past history of
the Sicilian volcano, and its present eruption, from which
we make the following extracts :

" After a quiescence of fifteen years the historic
volcano of Sicily is again in a state of violent com-
motion. . . • From the crater itself a great cloud of
black ashes has Leen poured forth, rendering the
mountain invisible, and obscuring the rays of the sun
even at a distance of many miles. These ashes have
been carried far and wide, and have even covered the
ground so far away as Reggio, on the adjacent coast of
Calabria. Three new craters have opened in the direc-
Loa of Randazzo, on the north side of the mountaire
and tile lava is running rapidly towards the town of
Francavilla, where great alarm is felt, though that
town is situated beyond the river Alcantara, and
on the very outskirts of the region usually threatened
by eruptions. On the opposite side of the mountain,
Paternb and the adjacent village of Santa Maria di
Licodia are reported to be greatly alarmed. . . .
The stream of lava, which is estimated to be 70
metres in width, is flowing in a direction some-
where between Francavilla and Randazzo, and seems
to have reached the high road which encircles
the mountain and connects the latter town with the
villages Linguaglossa, and Piedimente. These vil-
lages are enshrouded in a canopy of ashes, and almost
total darkness prevails in them. None of the ordinary
concomitants of a great eruption seem to be absent.
Balls of fire, or what are taken for such, are hurled
into the air from the new craters and fissures, and,
having reached a great height, they burst with a loud
crash. Reports like the rolling of artillery are heard
in the night, while night and day alike the stream of
lava flows stealthily and irresistibly on until by the
latest accounts it has reached to within a few miles of
Linguaglossa.
From the earliest dawn of historic time Etna has
been a name of terror to the nations dwelling on the
Mediterranean Sea. The mometain is now called in
Sicily Mongibello—a strange compound of Latin and
Arabic elements identical in meaning—but its ancient
name, which geographers still retain, very probably
signifies a flaming fire. Unlike its neighbour
Vesuvius, it has never entirely lapsed into
quiescence, though several centuries have often
passed without the occurrence of any serious
eruption. To its continued, though intermittent
activity, and to the fear which it has always in-
spired in ancient and modern times, we may attribute
the fact that its eruptions, though they have sometimes
been terribly destructive, have never been marked by
any such dramatic catastrophe as thst in which Pom-
peii and Herculaneum were overwhelmed just eighteen
centuries ago, when Vesuvius first recovered its dormant
and forgotten activity. It is true that the enormous
area occupied by Etna and its slopes, with the excel).
tion of the desolate Val del Bove, a vast chLsm on
the eastern face of the mountain, capacious enough to
contain the whole mass of Vesuvius, is densely popu-
lated at its lower levels, but the towns and villages
which exist have sprung up in full consciousness of
their precarious tenure, and have never pretended
either to the luxury or to the careless security of
Pompeii and its neighbours. Catania, the nearest im-
portant city to the mountain, has more than once been
threatened, and has suffered severely in past times from
the effects of some of the greater eruptions. Thus Etna,
even its longest periods of comparative quiescence, has
always been a terror to the people who dwell on its
slopes, for its crater has never Peen wholly inactive,
and the grim desolation of the Val del Bove has
been a standing warning of its destructive power. •. .
Thucydides records an eruption in the year 425
8.C., when a stream of lava ravaged the environs of
Catania, and this, he says was the third eruption
that had happened since Sicily was first colonized
by the Greeks, The second of these took place fifty
years before, and is the one to which Pinder
makes reference in his ode celebrating the victory of
Hiero .of Etna. Later ancient writers, both Greek
and Roman, make frequent reference to the moun-
tain and its eruptions, while in modern times an
extensive literature has been devoted to the same
subject. Etna is, in fact, the grandest and most
powerful outlet of the great line of volcanic action
which stretches along the southern and eastern
parts of the Mediterranean, spreading northwards
from Sicily through the Lipari Islands to Ischia,
Vesuvius. and the Solfaterra, and even as far as the
Monte Alban., southwards to Yantellaria, and east-
wards pest the Pelorionuese to the Agean and thence
through the Levant to Cyprus, Syria, and the more
distant East. Throughout this whole region are found
large numbers both of active and extinct volcanoes,
some continuously active like Stromboli and the island
especially called Volcano, some intermittent like
Vesuvius and Etna, some partially subaqueous, like
the island of Santorin, which for more than 2,000
years has been the scene of the strangest volcanic
vicissitudes, while many more are extinct, and to all
appearance exhausted. Traces of volcanic action have
been found in various parts of Syria, and some have
discerned in the narrative of the Exodus an early
record of volcanic phenomena and their overpower-
ing influence over the minds of men.
"It is very difficult at present to conjecture what
may be the ultimate extent of the eruption now going
on. Seventy-eight eruptions of Etna have been re-
corded, and of these, though several have been both
severe and long-continued, the large majority
have been of a comparatively harmless character.
Tweety-seven years ago, in 1852 an eruption corn'.
menced in the month of August so suddenly
that a party of Englishmen, who were climbing
the mountain and had almost reached the foot
of the final cone, had great difficulty in making
their escape, and it continued more or less actively for
nine mouths. Early in 175 an eruption occurred
which was accompanied by the remarkable pheno-
menon of an over weelming stream of water flowing
from the usually arid and barren Val del Bove. This
stream formed a channel two miles broad and in some
places 34 feet deep, and it flowed at the rate of a
mile in a minute and a half for the first twelve miles
of its course. Those who witnessed this eruption de-
clared the water to be salt, and of course it was sup-
posed to come in some mysterious fashion
direct from the sea, especially as its volume
was calculated to exceed that of all the
winter's, snow accumulated on the mountain. This
strange phenomenon is now satisfactorily explained
by tho proved eeistence of vast reservoirs of snow and
ice accumulated in different parts of the mountain
beneath the euperincumbent lava. The heat of the
rising flow of lava melted the ice, and the salt taste
was communicated by the vaporous exhalations. But
the most de.tructive eruption of modern times toek
place in 1669. A fissure nearly twelve miles in
length and of unknown depth, but not more than
six feet wide, opened on the north-eastern side of
the mountain; six mouths, or craters, opened in
a line with this fissure, pouring forth vast volumss
of smoke, accompanied by a low bellowing,
which was heard forty miles away. Beei les this
new craters were formed in various other parts of the
mountain, including the well-known double cone,
now ceded Monti Rossi, which is nearly 800 feet high
and 2 miles in circumference at its base. During the
course of the eruption violent earthquakes occurred,
and the cone of the great central crater was
shaken down into the crater itself for the fifth
time since the commencement of our milk. The
great current of lava caused by this eruption
divided itself into three streams which destroyed
a large number of villages, and ultimately reached
Catania itself. Two miles from the city it is said
to have undermined a tract of land and to have
carried a vineyard, with its vines all standing, to a
considerable distance. The vivacious traveller
Brydone, wile visited Sicily in 1770, declares that
he saw a portion of this vineyard still under cultiva.
thin. Arrived at Catania the stream piled itself tip
against the walls, 60 feet high, which the wise
precaution of an earlier generation had provided
against its ravages. The wall withstood the enor-
mous pressure, but the stream finally reached its
summit, and Poured into the city in a destruc-
tive cascade ol -fire. At last tee lava reached the
sea, Nbien it entered in a stream 600 yards broad
and 40 f..!!-t deep, and a great conflict of the elements
ensut-d, accou! usanoci with dunes of steam and masses
of flying soorite. Is id daici that this groat araPtim

destroyed the property of over 30,000 people. We can
only hope that Sicily is not about to suffer another
such catastrophe. The whirlwind, the fissures, the
opening of new craters, the rumbling noises, the wide-
spread deposit of ashes, the clouds of steam and sul-
phurous vapour, the lightnings, the thunders, the earth-
quakes, and the darkness, are all ohenomena more or less
common to all eruptions, whether mild or destructive.
They are terrible enough to those whose life and for-
tunes are at stake, and there is no doubt that the
mountain is in a state of very violent ectiTity. But
we may draw a reasonable and consoling hope from the
fact that of the scores of recorded eruptions of Etna
most have been comparatively harmless, and only a
few have been widely destructive."

Later aivices say that the eruption of Mount Etna
has increased to an alarming extent. Great devasta-
tion has been caused in the surrounding country, and
the inhabitants have had to abandon the village of
Mojo,
11.0 E, Jane 3.

The lava from• Mount Etna is extending along the
termini of the Taormina road, but it has still half a
metre to run before reaching the Alcantara river, into
which it was reported to have rolled. The extension
of the lava stream is immense, but it flows slowly.
The eruption again augmented in force last night.

A correspondent, writing from Taormina, Sicily, May 29th,
in a letter to The Times, gives an interesting account of the
outbreak of the eruption.—We make the rollowing extracts
from his letter :

" On the night of Slay 25 there were continuous murmur-
ins from Etna, but, this not being an uncommon occurrence,
it attracted but little or no attention On the morning of
the 26th these murmurings increased....
"At about halt past twelve p.m., a dense cloud of smoke
was seen to tie issuing from the great crater of Etna—that is,
as well as its origin could be traced amid the clouds with
which the mountain was covered. It was a broad cloud
which stretched over the land and over the sea until it was
lost on the horizm It had a very red, or rather it might
be described as of a burnt sienna, colour, and minute specks
of ash began to fall, but not in any quantity ; we could trace
it in its course tar hat, the night, and, in fact, until we all
went to bed. On the morning of the 270 all seemed in re-
pose—not a cloud was upon the mountain, save the flat cloud
with a lump in the middle which :often overhangs the
crater in the summer months, and which the Sicilians call
'the Cardinal's Rat.' But at halt-past eight a dense
c!oud was observed to issue from the earth upon the northern
slope of the mountain, as well as could be judged about
half-way between Linguagrossi and Randazzo, but much
higher up the mountain. This cloud grew and spread, and
became so dense that the whole mountain became perfectly
Invisible; the light became au much obscured that it
resembled the darkness produced by a total eclipse of the
sun, and a rain of fine black ash, like powdered emery,
commenced. So heavy was the fall that the promontory of
Naxos, but two miles distant, became perfectly invisible.
This black rain continued the whole of the day, loud reports
could occasionally be heard from the mountain, and no
doubt now remained that an eruption on a grand scale had
commenced. No positive information c mild be obtained as to
its exact locality, for nobody could ascend the mountain
under such circums.ances. Etna is so enormous and so
precipitous and rugged that a voyage of investigation in
such a rain of 5t,,41 and such darkness would have been
almost an imiy•ssibility. We did all we could to obtain
news, but very little that could be depended upon was
acquired.

"All night this black rain went on. About midnight huge
fires could be seen looming through the dense clouds. In
the morning a most extraordinary scene presented itself;
the whole face of nature was black, the hills and plains
were black, the sea-shore was black, the usually dazzingly
white roads were black, the roofs of the houses were
black. My garden is just now a mass of flowers,
but every leaf, every petal, every cup, was loaded
with black, the edgs.s of the petals giving a bright line of
the colour of the flower. If a breath of wind passed, a
black shower fell from the trees, and still the black rain
went on. Tne effect upon the mind was most depressing.
This ash penetrates everything; it is found in closely-shut
linen drawers, in close boxes; it is all amorg my paper as I
write; and it seems to take delight in inserting itself in
one's food—for two days I have been chewing grit. Tue
effect of trees and figures in this universal black is very
strange, the colours standing out with startling brilliancy.
"At two o'clock in the day I started on horseback to Pled
monte to try and gain some positive news, and heard that
three craters, each about a mile apart and situate like
the points of a triangle, had opened in a valley about six
miles above a postal station called Passapescaro, a place
nearly midway on the road between Linguagrossa and
Randazzo—a most difficult place to reach, as lodging of any
description could not be obtained within fourteen miles, over
precipitous and rugged ground, with every path obliterated
by the ash, the mountain thundering and vomiting fire in
unknown directions, with the terrible darkness and eternal
rain of black ash, and general consternation everywhere.
The lava was said to be flowing, but only its reflected light
could be seen at night, as it was in a valley, which, as far as
I can ascertain, must be next the 'Valley del Bove.'

"My eyes were most painfully inflamed by the line ash as-
I returned, as were those of my horse. My pockets were
full, my boots were full; it was down my neck, in my hair
and beard, and my ears were blocked up with it; the
polished surface of my saddle was ground away with the
grit. . . .

"At night the scene was magnificent; a tremendous
stream of lava, many miles long, descended in the apparent
direction of Randazz), while from the new craters great
balls of fire were thrown high In the air and burst into
showers of fire, like gigantic rock ts, accompanied by
thundering explosions. this morning the explosions are still
going on ; the stream of lava seems more active than ever;
but the ash has much diminished, and although much of the
mountain is obscured, it is by a cloud apparently of vapour
rather than of ash, and this gives indications of clearing
away, when the whole scene may become visible. Two
English gentlemen left here this morning to try and reach
the craters."