New-York tribune., 1879-06-05
ETYA.

The present eruption OF 51t Etna threatens 10 oo
the most destructive which has ever occurred oW-
ing to the increase since that of 1892. IN the ier
tility of the farms and the population and wealth
of the villages. The cone. in which thirty new era
| ters have opened within few days, IL a summit
nearly 900 feet in rising from desert waste
of scorp lava and ashes Outside Of this centre lies
belt slx or seven miles wide of forests and grazing
lands and below this again, encircling the base OF
the mountain is another belt of rich farms and vne-
yards, set with thriving villages. The land here'
owing to the mixture Of lava with the soil, Is the
| most productive IN Sicily, which accounts for the
crowding of fruit aud wlne-growers from other
parts of the island to this quarter where death anu
| ruin wait for them night and day. In the eruption
| of A. ID. 1863 $1,000 Of these Catanians were de-
stroyed. and IN both 1927 and 1852 the streams of
lava penetrated tho woody region and overwhelmed
the villages in the lower belt But before the sur
face was quite cool the people were back, building
new homes over the buried runs of the old Ones
Human nature was lust as foolish as now in greed
iness and men in as great haste to DO rich when
Pndar 800 years before Christ. told how " the
snowy Etna the pillar of heaven the nurse OF ev-
erlastng FROST IN whose breasts were md the 1oun-
tains of unapproachabe fire." slew her Victims Dy
the thousands
| There have been some singular circumstances IN
which the eruptions of this volcano have differed
from Others. One occurred III 1852, when. after
the flowing of lava had ceased, in certain area tue
trees vines and grass were struck dead as III
bv LIGHTNING with no visible cause. Another was
the burial of glacier under the lava, which Lyeii
states remained for thirty years unmeted, ggan-
tic ice-house for the Catanans. Much of the rum
caused bv the eruption of this volcano in 17J5 re-
suited from the sudden melting of the SHOWS above
the Val del Bove and the precipitation Of Hood OF
water, two miles in width.
The present eruption 10 doubt will set geoogists
again to Speculating upon the age OF this most an
cient mouth of hell" Such speculatlons are
usually based upon the formation OF the cone,
reckoning the cOncentrc layers OF scor9 ana laVa
much as we compute the age OF a tree by the rings
IN its trunk cut horizontally. According TO TINS
kind of estimate. Etna was belching forth her
fiery sea down the Val del Bove iii the first days oil
creation, while the earth was without form and
void and darkness was upon the face OF the deep.
Probably too there will be fresh outbreak OF the
| old controversies as to the origin of volcanic
energy. In these hot debates the physicists ana
seismOlogsts have been arrayed under widely
different banners. Some have pinned their faith 70
the chemical theory of volcanoes, and held that
the intense reactions which must take place under
| enormous pressure in the earths interior are ample
TO produce those erupuOns, OF wnlch Etna and
Vesuyius have furnished such splendid examples.
Others have c0ntended for the PlutOnc theory,
which insists that the solid crust of the
earth is after all. but a thin film,
hat the globe is a fiery bubble liable to be exploded
at any moment by the forces raging within IT, ana
that volcanoes afford safety valve for the extra
ordinary storms which agtate the molten seas un-
der our feet These it is true, are ancient specula-
tions and are gradually being abandoned, while the
scientific world is drifting to belief in what Is
known as the contraction theory. According to
this hypothesis, the eartRs internal neat
is kept up precisely as the heat OF the
sun Is-by contraction. 1t is held that
the contraction and crushing down of the solid
crust produce earthquakes, and set free an enor-
mons amount of heat which only requires the pres
ence of water to cause volcanic eruptions. without
wafer says Mallet, the great advocate oil tins
theory there can be no volcanoes; and 1t is SIN
pular fact that Etna and Nesuvius and Hecia, ana
the terribly destructive volcanoes of Japan, are all
found near the sea.
None of these sDeculatiOns will afford much COM
fort to the poor Cataniaus whose crops are swept
away or burned by the streams of lava. or buried
under showers of ashes but to the rest of us it may
be oonsolatory to know that the worlds inner
fires are fading and that Etna and her rival vol
canoes will one day be as quiet and as harmless as
! tie extinct craters OF the moon.