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Show 360 ltBFLECTIONS ON TilE BURIED CITIES, other, with thick intervening strata of tuff or lava-some nu .. scathed by fire, like those of Herculaneum and Pompeii, others half melted down like those of Torre del Greco, or shattered and thrown about in strange confusion like Tripergola. Among the ruins will be seen skeletons of men, and impressions of the human form stamped in solid rocks of tuff. Nor will the signs of earthquakes be wanting. The pavement of part of the Domitian Way, and the Temple of the Nymphs, submerged at high tide, will be uncovered nt low water, the columns remaining erect and uninjured ; while other temples which had once sunk down, like that of Serapis, will be found to have been upraised again 'by subsequent movements. If they who study these phenomena, and speculate on their causes, assume that there were periods when the laws of Nature diffe1·ed from those established in their own time, they will scarcely hesitate to refer the wonderful monuments in question to those primeval ages. When they consider the numerous proofs of reiterated catastrophes to which the region was subject, they may, perhaps, commiserate the unhappy fate of beings condemned to inhabit a planet during its nascent and chaotic state, and feel grateful that their favoured race escaped such scenes of anarchy and misrule. Yet what was the real condition of Campania during those years of dire convulsion? "A climate where heaven's breath smells sweet and wooingly-a vigorous and luxuriant nature unparalleled in its productions-a coast which was once the fairy land of poets, and the favourite retreat of great men. Even the tyrants of the creation loved this alluring region, spared it, adorned it, lived in it, died in it*." The inhabitants, indeed, have enjoyed no immunity from the calamities which are the lot of mankind; but the principal evils which they have suffered must be attributed to moral, not to physical causes-to disastrous events over which man might have exercised a control, rather than to the inevitable catastrophes which result from subterranean agency. When Spartacus encamped his army of ten thousand gladiators in the old extinct crater of Vesuvius, the volcano was more justly a subject of terror to Campania, than it has ever been since the rekindling of its fires. * Forsyth's Italy, vol, ii. CHAPTER XXI. External physiognomy of Etna-Minor cones produced by 1a t era1 crup t't ons- Successive obliteration of these cones-Early eruptions of Etna-Monti Rossi thrown up in . 1669-Great fissure of S• · L1'o-Tow ns over fl owe d b y lava-Part of Catama destroyed-Mode of the advance of a current of lava. -Excavation of a church under lava--Series of subterranean cavernsLinear direction of cones formed in 1811 and 1819-Flood produced in 1755 by the melting of snow during an eruption-A glacier covered by a lavastream on Etna-Volcanic eruptions in Iceland-New island thrown up in 1783-Two lava-currents of Skaptar Jokul in the same year-Their immense volume:-Eruption ~f Jorullo in Mexico-Humboldt's Theory respecting tho convex1ty of the Plam of Mal pais. As we have entered into a detailed historical account of th changes in. the volcanic district round Naples, our limits wil~ only permit us to allude in a cursory manner to some of the cir1c um·s tances of• principal interest in the history of o th er vo came mountams. After Vesuvius, our most authentic records relate to Etna, which rises near the sea in solitary grandeur to the height of nearly eleven thousand feet* the mass being chiefly composed of volcanic matter ejected above the surface of the water. The base of the cone is almost circul~ r, and eighty-seven English miles in circumference; but if '~e I~cl~tde the whole district over which its lavas extend, the cncmt Is probably twice that extent. The cone is divided by Nature into three distinct zones, called the fertile, the woody an~ the desert regions. The first of these, comprising th; ~~~htful country around the skirts of the mountain is well cu tlvate~, thickly inhabited, and covered with olive;, vines, ~or?, frmt:trees, and arom~tic herbs. Higl1er up, the woody e?10~ encircles the moun tam-an extensive forest, six or seven miles m width, affording pasturage for numerous flocks. The trees are of various species, the chestnut, oak and pine being most lux un·a n t ; wh I'l e, m· some tracts, are' groves o'f cork to~7~7e:~~ing· to Captain Smyth (Sicily and its ltllands, p. 145)1 its height is |