The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1923-06-26
TERRIBLE DESTRUCTION BY VOLCANO

The eruption continued three days,
and two more cities were wiped out.
Six fiery mouths, one of them l,/OO
feet wide. roared into the night. About
this crown of the fire lay l,0OO-yard
ribbon of white-hot ashes. From the
glaring summit radial streams OF
smoking lava wound snake-like into
the valleys.
One of the hugest streams swept
toward Clare, where 10000 people
had hurriedly begun the evacuation 'ot
their doomed city. 1t had already
wiped out the villages of Germinara
and Casanica in its path.
On the crest of the lava wave rode
incandescent rocks weighing tons.
From time to time these were. hurled
out from the pouring avalanche, crash
ing before it. Under the smoke clouds
the countryside wited in furnace heat.
Showers of small stones lay two and
three inches deep over the devastated
zone.
While fragments of solid lava fell
as far as 80 miles from the crater, in
habitants Of towns on the mountain
slope were frantically digging trench
es to break the course of lava streams.
Religious professions were formed
in many towns. The entire population
of Piedemonte had camped all night
in the public square of the city, clus-
tering about the wooden statue OF St.
Anthony and praying as church bells
necessarily rang.
Catania is housing $4,000 refugees:
New throngs pour in hourly, a wierd
cavalcade of families struggling on
foot or clustering like flies on army
trucks. private automobiles and farm
wagons. Through the block of traf-
hc farmers drive their cattle, mules,
| horses and goats ahead of them, the
animals maddened by heat and thirst.
The terrific heat has dried up all
wells for miles about, and refugees
arriving clamor for water.
Dominates Island.
The towering volcanic cone of Mt.
Etna dominates the entire island OF
Sicily. Wherever one goes on the
north shore it is always. in sight, ris-
ing 10000 feet into the air, and hav-
ing a base of low foothills 90 miles
in circumference.
Roughly its appearance is similar
to the familiar pictures of FuJiyama
in Japan, the conical summit usually
white with snow. From this summit,
in normal days, long greyish pinion
of volcanic smoke drifts away from
the main crater, merging with the
clouds. Tiny wart-like protuberances
mark the minor ones.
Sicilys summer sky is cloudless, a
vivid robins egg blue. Against this
sky rises the huge mountain. It's up
per slopes are sheer gray rock, its
lower slopes brilliant green with the
foliage of orange and lemon groves.
About the island is flung the fiat,
blue sea, dotted with white-sailed fish
ing craft. To the north one sees the
cloud-1ike bulk OF land that is the toe
of the Italian boot at Reggie.
The sicilian coastal plain is marked
everywhere with past records of Etna.
In the city of Messina huge cracked
walls of ruined houses tell of the
earthquake that destroyed the city,
now largely rebuilt. All houses are
open to the air, permitting easy es-
capes in case of earth shocks. These
houses are OF concrete or stone, white
washed and frescoed with pink and
blue decorations.
Lava is frequently sawed into
blocks and used in building houses
or walls. Great fields of tortured
stone-the lava rivers, now cold, OF
previous outbursts-twist across the
plains.
Catania, once Spanish fortress,
has many walls of lava. Mt. Etna,
perhaps thirty miles away, dominates
the northern skyline of the city.