The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1874-09-06
Etna's Threatened Flare up.
louisville Courier.Journai. !

LOUISVILLE Cour1er.J
The latest intelligence from the extern
sive workshops under Mount Etns, show
how little the gods care for the vicissitudes
of the mortals. Financial arrangement,
the overlooking of the iron market, and
protective and prohibitory tariff laws, are
no check to heroic enterprise, and, right
in the face of these obstacles to industrial
activity, Master-workman Vulcan has put
on an extra force Of skilled cyclops, and is
a large supply of metallic armor and orna-
ments for the gods and heroes of mytho-
logy. So, at least, we may infer from a
recent letter from Sicily which states that
since the beginning of May, Etna has been
in an unusual state of activity.
Certain it is that the indications just
now are very strong that what our old
friend Pindar faucifully called the pillar
of heaven will, before the simmer is we'll
over. have another notch cut into it and
added to the long fiug that was begun way
back before the Trojan war. Seven or
eight times that we know of before the
Christian era, old Etna, after growing for
awhile over its internal agonies, belched
forth its overload and spread its lava over
the surrounding country. Since then at
intervals other eruptions have occurred +,
but the violence of nature is not too much
for the recuperative powers of time, and in
many places gardens bloom over the soil
ak thousand feet above tha-s sea, there is
still a cold and desolate zone Of the noun
tain which spreads out in broad tracts,
which are rough and black with the naked
lava and scorip, or white with drifts of
snow, over three thousand feet of which
the traveller must pick his way to reach the
cone, and for thousand feet below which
only the hardy mountain goats can find
means of livelihood. But below this comes
the woody district, which on the north side
skirts down to within half mile of the
foot of the mountain, and almost into that
delightful region at the base OF Etna known
to the people of the ueighbOrhood as the
reqione cultG In this region of cultivation,
in the rich soil of the decomposed lava,
are fourishiug plantations of olives, vines,
grain, fruits, and aromatic herbs, and all
through it towns and villages are clustered.
These villages are liable to be swept away
or buried in sea of burning lava-the
fate of many of their predecessors-bu the
people are familiar with danger, they know
no other home, and the attractions of the
climate and soil make them forget their
constant peril, Here Catania, an ancient
and beautiful city almost at the base of the
was overwhelmed a century be-
fore Christ. thousand years later the
city was again buried, and fifteen thousand
lives were destroyed. Two hundred years
ago the same city was again destroyed,
and the food of lava poured over It far out
into the sea, forming 9 pFOmOntory which
serves as a natural break water. But
Catania again emerged from its bed of
ashes and lava, and from this Inflated city
now comes the news of the suspicious COM
motion in the breast of EtDa that may
perhaps, again bring destruction upon it.
Since the Christian era there have been
over fifty viOlent eruptions. During the
Roman empire there were but two eruP-
tons, nearly two hundred years apart.
About the middle of the last century an
eruption poured forth torrents of hot water.
During the present century there have
been about dozen eruptioDs. One begin
January 81, 1865, continued for several
months, and caused much alarm, but
brOught people from all parts of the world
70 rzitnann Che Rrnctncin. Five Henrh hRn.