crevices and cracks in the rocks, until it comes into contact with the internal fires, when it is converted into vapour and expelled with violence. The internal fires are nourished by the winds which penetrate into the mountain. He traces some curious connection between the plants which grow upon the mountain, and the supply of sulphur and bitumen to the interior, which is, at best, but partly intelligible.

Many of the myths developed by the earlier poets had their home in the immediate neighbourhood, sometimes upon the very sides, of Etna—Demeter seeking Persephone; Acis and Galatea; Polyphemus and the Cyclops. Mr. Symonds tells us that the one-eyed giant Polyphemus was Etna itself, with its one great crater, while the Cyclops were the many minor cones. "Persephone was the patroness of Sicily, because amid the billowy corn-fields of her mother Demeter, and the meadow-flowers she loved in girlhood, are ever found sulphurous ravines, and chasms breathing vapour from the pit of Hades."[7]

It is said that both Plato and the Emperor Hadrian ascended Etna in order to witness the sunrise from its summit. The story of

is too trite to need repetition. A ruined tower near the head of the Val del Bove, 9,570 feet above the sea, has from time immemorial been called the Torre del Filosofo, and is asserted to have been the observatory of Empedokles. Others regard it as the remains of a Roman tower, which was possibly erected on the occasion of Hadrian's ascent of the mountain.

During the Middle Ages Etna is frequently alluded to, among others by Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Cardinal Bembo. The latter gives a description of the mountain in the form of a dialogue, which Ferrara characterises as "erudito, e grecizzante, ma sensa nervi." He describes its general appearance, its well-wooded sides, and sterile summit. When he visited the mountain it had two craters about a stone's throw apart; the larger of the two was said to be about three miles in circumference, and it stood somewhat above the other.[8]

In 1541 Fazzello made an ascent of the mountain, which he briefly describes in the fourth chapter of his bulky volume De Rebus Siculis.[9] This chapter is entitled "De Aetna monte et ejus ignibus;" it contains a short history of the mountain, and some mention of the principal towns which he enumerates in the following order: Catana, Tauromenium, Caltabianco, Linguagrossa, Castroleone, Francavilla, Rocella, Randatio (Randazzo), Bronte, Adrano, Paterno, and Motta. Fazzello speaks of only one crater.

In 1591 Antonio Filoteo, who was born on Etna, published a work in Venice in which he describes the general features of the mountain, and gives a special account of an eruption which he witnessed in 1536.[10] The mountain was then, as now, divided into three Regions. The first and uppermost of these, he asserts, is very arid, rugged, and uneven, and full of broken rocks; the second is covered with forests; and the third is cultivated in the ordinary manner. Of the height he remarks, "Ascensum triginta circiter millia passuum ad plus habet." In regard to the name, Mongibello, he makes a curious error, deriving it from Mulciber, one of the names of Vulcan, who, as we have seen, was feigned by the earlier poets to have had his forge within the mountain.

In 1636 Carrera gave an account of Etna, followed by that of the Jesuit Kircher, in 1638. The great eruption of 1669 was described at length by various eye-witnesses, and furnished the subject of the first detailed description of the eruptive phenomena of the mountain. Public attention was now very generally drawn to the subject in all civilised countries. It was described by the naturalist, Borelli, and in our own Philosophical Transactions. Lord Winchelsea, our ambassador at Constantinople, was returning to England by way of the Straits of Messina at the time of the eruption, and he forwarded to Charles II "A true and exact relation of the late prodigious earthquake and eruption of Mount Ætna, or Monte Gibello."

The first map of the mountain which we have been able to meet with, was published in reference to the eruption of 1669; it is entitled, "Plan du Mont Etna communenent dit Mount Gibel en l'Isle de Scicille et de t'incedie arrive par un treblement de terre le 8me Mars dernier 1669." This plan is in the Bibliothèque Nationale, in Paris; it was probably drawn from a simple description, or perhaps altogether from the imagination, as it is utterly unlike the mountain, the sides of which possess an impossible steepness. Another very inaccurate map was published in Nuremberg about 1680, annexed to a map of Sicily, which is entitled, "Regnorum Siciliæ et Sardiniæ, Nova Tabula." Again, in 1714 H. Moll, "geographer in Devereux Street, Strand," published a new map of Italy, in which there is a representation of Etna during the eruption of 1669. This also was probably drawn from the imagination; no one who has ever seen the mountain would recognise it, for it has a small base, and sides which rival the Matterhorn in abruptness. Over against the coast of Sicily, and near the mountain, is written:—"Mount Etna, or Mount Gibello. This mountain sometimes issues out pure flame, and at other times a thick smoak with ashes; streams of fire run down with great quantities of burning stones, and has made many eruptions."

During the eighteenth century Etna was frequently ascended, and as frequently described. We have the accounts of Massa (1703), Count D'Orville (1727), Riedesel (1767), Sir William Hamilton (1769), Brydone (1776), Houel (1786), Dolomieu (1788), Spallanzani (1790), and many minor writers, such as Borch, Brocchi, Swinburne, Denon, and Faujas de Saint Fond. There is great sameness in all of these narratives, and much repetition of the same facts; some of them, however, merit a passing notice.

Sir William Hamilton's Campi Phlegræi relates mainly to Vesuvius and the surrounding neighbourhood; but one of the letters "addressed to the Secretary of the Royal Society on October 17th, 1769," describes an ascent of Etna. Hamilton ascended on June 24th with the Canon