Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1886-07-21
THE ERuPTIoN oF ETNA.
An Eye Witness, Two Miles Distant, De-
scribes the Scene.

scriDes the scene.
Lord BURY sent 10 the London Times
an extract from private letter describ-
ing the eruption of Etna The writer Is
engineer in charge of the Palermo Cor
leone Railway. His letter is dated at
Catania.
after about three hours climbing.
we got to within couple of miles OF
the crater itself. 1t is at the side OF Et-
ma, you know-not near the top--that
this eruption has broken out and we
got on to a bit of high ground overlook
ing the whole scene. It was daylight
when we got up there. so that we saw
the whole thing by daylight 1t was
the most glorious and indescribable
sight ever saw in my life. 1t is per-
fectly impossible TO describe it, as
no one can have any conception of
what it is like until he sees it, and also
until he secs it from where we did,
which was on high ground overlooking
nearly the whole of it. At the top is
this enormous crater, throwing out
flames and throwing up stones some
hundreds of Yards, with continual
roar, like any number of battles going
on, and just below is another mouth,
from which the lava comes. travelling at
a tremendous pace 1t divides into
several streams and follows the valleys.
Now, imagine from where we were that
night, with our backs to Catania, what
we saw. On our right this enormous
flame going hundreds of feet into the
air, making the whole sky bright red,
and all down past us from our right,
and extending down miles to the left,
streams of red-hot lava, moving down
ward in a mass for miles, and looking
like an enormous sea of red-hot coke,
The width across the lava where we
were was, perhaps, three or four miles,
and it started about two miles above us
and flowed some four miles or so below
us, so you must imagine sea Of angry.
red-hot lava five or six miles long, and
three or four wide, and about 80 or 40
feet deep, but MI of it bright rcd. You
can Judge whether 1t was II sight worth
seeing. / would not have missed it for
worlds. The lava is not liquid, as most
people suppose, but consists of many
millions of large and small blocks Of
rocky looking stuff rolling onward. We
saw one huge rock of lava standing in
the middle of the stream of lava, which
was divided by it and ran around it;
the rock was about the size of (say)
Quidenham Church, and this rock sud-
denly split into two parts, the smaller
half crumbled up and The other half
was carried bodily down with the
stream slowly and steadily. We watched
it until we left, and IL moved about
three-quarters of mile in about three
quarters of an hour. We waited there
until nearly midnight, as we could not
venture down until the moon got up,
and then we reluctantly left this magnI-
ficent sight, which, as tell you, no de-
scription can give you any idea Of. As
we went up we had all gone into little
house to see it and walked around it,
and thought it was unpleasantly close
to the lava. Well, rs We came down
this house was in flames and caught by
the stream. In many places we had 10
! take different paths, SO quickly had the
lava spread as it came down, and from
below it is awful (quite close TO IT'D to
see the mass thirty or forty feet high
coming slowly toward you. We were
up near the crater nearly four hours.
We saw other people 60 up to see the
lower end of the lava. STAY there a few
minutes, and 60 down again; but the
way to do il is to 90 right high up, ar
irving by daylight, and then stay there
to see it BY night and watch the chang
es going on. Il was glorious"
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