The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1886-07-19
CHE 9ailg q .ltetin.
MONDAY, JULY 10, 1886.
MOUNT ETNA.


The following is from private
letter written by the engineer in
charge of the Palermo-C orleone
railway, and published in the Lon
don zimes:--
Catania, May "a, 1sS6.-You
have probably heard of the Erup-
ton of Etna which is going on.
left Palermo Saturday and came
here to see it. We left here about
3 o'clock (six of us, English)
Saturday afternoon, and drove to
Nicolisi, which we reached about s
O'Clock, and got mules and went up
to the scene, There were crowds of
people going there, but we took a
different road and went up much
higher than the general crowd. We
had q guide with us, and after a
three hours climbing we got to
within couple of miles of the era
ter itself. 1t is at the side of Etna,
you know, not near the top, that
this eruption has broken out, and we
got on to bit of high ground over
looking the whole scene. 1t was still
daylight when we got up there, so
that we saw the whole thing by day
light. We then settled ourselves
down to dinner, which we had
brought with us from Catania, and
of course it was soon dark, and
there we were comfortably "feed-
ing" before the most glorious and
indescribable sight ever saw in my
life. 1t is perfectly impossible to
describe it, as no one can have any
conception of what it is like until
they see it from where we did,
which was on the high ground over
looking nearly the whole Of it. At
the top is this enormous crater
throwing out flames and throwing up
stones some hundreds of yards,
with continued roar like any num-
Der of battles going on, and just be-
low is another mouth from which the
lava comes, travelling at tremend-
Gus pace. 1t divides into several
streams and follows the valleys.
Now imagine from where we were
that night, with our backs to Cata-
mia, what we saw. On our right
this enormous flame going hun
dreds Of feet into the air, making
the whole sky red, and all down
past us from our right and extend
ing down miles to the left streams
of red-hot lava moving downward in
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 thirty or forty feet deep,
but all of it bright red. You can
judge whether it was sight worth
seeing. 1 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
old lava standing in the middle of
the stream of lava, which was
divided by it and ran round it; the
rock was about the size Of, say,
Quidenham Church, and this rock
suddenly 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 it
moved about three-quarters of a
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 mag
nificent sight, which, as 1 tell you,
no description 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,
as we came down this house was in
flames and caught by the stream.
In many places we had to take
different paths, so quickly had the
lava spread as it came down; and
from below it is awful, quite close to
it, to see this mass, thirty or forty
feet high, coming slowly toward
you. / brought a piece of redhot
lava down with me, which the guide
got hold of for me, as l could not
get it myself, it was so fearfully hot
/ could not 60 close enough. We
put wire around it and l carried 1t
down on the end of my stick. In
fact we each brought bit down and
also some ashes or cinders which
rained down on us whenever the
wind was our way. We got back to
Catania at about AIS A. NJ. 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 few minutes and 60
down again; but the way to do it is
to go right high up, arriving by day
light, and then stay there to see il
by night and watch the changes
going on. 1t was glorious.