"Pomponia.n.u.s was then at Stabiae, separated by a gulf which the sea, after several windings, forms upon the sh.o.r.e. He had already sent his baggage on board; for though not at that time in actual danger, yet being within prospect of it, he was determined, if it drew nearer, to put to sea as soon as the wind should change. The wind was favorable, however, for carrying my uncle to Pomponia.n.u.s, whom he found in the greatest consternation. He embraced him tenderly, encouraging and counselling him to keep up his spirits; and still better to dissipate his alarm, he ordered, with an air of unconcern, the baths to be got ready. After having bathed, he sat down to supper with great cheerfulness, or, what was equally courageous, with all the semblance of it.
"Meanwhile, the eruption from Mount Vesuvius broke forth in several places with great violence, and the darkness of the night contributed to render it still more visible and dreadful. But my uncle, to soothe the anxieties of his friend, declared it was only the burning of the villages, which the country people had abandoned to the flames. After this, he retired to rest; and it is certain he was so little discomposed as to fall into a deep sleep; for being somewhat corpulent, and breathing hard, those who attended without actually heard him snore.
"The court which led to his apartment being nearly filled with stones and ashes, it would have been impossible for him, had he continued there longer, to have made his way out; it was thought proper, therefore, to awaken him. He got up and joined Pomponia.n.u.s and the rest of his company who were not unconcerned enough to think of going to bed. They consulted together which course would be the more prudent: to trust to the houses, which now shook from side to side with frequent and violent concussions; or to escape to the open country, where the calcined stones and cinders fell in such quant.i.ties, as notwithstanding their lightness, to threaten destruction. In this dilemma they decided on the open country, as offering the greater chance of safety; a resolution which, while the rest of the company hastily adopted it through their fears, my uncle embraced only after cool and deliberate consideration. Then they went forth, having pillows tied upon their heads with napkins; and this was their sole defence against the storm of stones that fell around them.
"It was now day everywhere else, but there a deeper darkness prevailed than in the obscurest night, though it was in some degree dissipated by torches and lights of various kinds. They thought proper to go down further upon the sh.o.r.e, to ascertain whether they might safely put out to sea; but found the waves still extremely high and boisterous. There my uncle, having drunk a draught or two of cold water, flung himself down upon a cloth which was spread for him, when immediately the flames and their precursor, a strong stench of sulphur, dispersed the rest of the company, and compelled him to rise. He raised himself with the a.s.sistance of two of the servants, but instantly fell down dead; suffocated, I imagine by some gross and noxious vapor. As soon as it was light again, which was not until the third day after this melancholy accident, his body was found entire, and free from any sign of violence, exactly in the same posture that he fell, so that he looked more like one asleep than dead."
In a second letter to Tacitus, Pliny in relating his own experiences, says:
"Day was rapidly breaking, but the light was exceedingly faint and languid; the buildings all around us tottered; and though we stood upon open ground, yet, as the area was narrow and confined, we could not remain without certain and formidable peril, and we therefore resolved to quit the town. The people followed us in a panic of alarm, and, as to a mind distracted with terror every suggestion seems more prudent than its own, pressed in great crowds about us in our way out.
"As soon as we had reached a convenient distance from the houses, we stood still, in the midst of a perilous and most dreadful scene. The chariots which we had ordered to be drawn out oscillated so violently, though upon level ground, that we could not keep them steady, even by supporting them with large stones. The sea seemed to roll back upon itself, and to be driven from its strands by the earth"s convulsive throes; it is certain, at least, that the sh.o.r.e was considerably enlarged, and that several marine animals were left upon it. On the other side, a black and terrible cloud, bursting with an igneous serpentine vapor, darted out a long train of fire, resembling, but much larger than the flashes of lightning.
"Soon after the black cloud seemed to descend and enshroud the whole ocean; as, in truth, it entirely concealed the island of Caprea and the headland of Misenum. The ashes now began to fall upon us, though in no considerable quant.i.ty. Turning my head, I perceived behind us a dense smoke, which came rolling in our track like a torrent. I proposed, while there was yet some light, to diverge from the highroad, lest my mother should be crushed to death in the dark by the crowd that followed us. Scarcely had we stepped aside when darkness overspread us; not the darkness of a cloudy night, or when there is no moon, but that of a chamber which is close shut, with all the lights extinct.
"And then nothing could be heard but the shrieks of women, the cries of children, and the exclamations of men. Some called aloud for their little ones, others for their parents, others for their husbands, being only able to distinguish persons by their voices; this man lamented his own fate, that man the fate of his family; not a few wished to die out of very fear of death; many lifted their hands to the G.o.ds; but most imagined the last eternal night was come, which should destroy the world and the G.o.ds together.
"At length, a glimmer of light appeared, which we imagined to be rather the foretoken of an approaching burst of flames, as in truth it was, than the return of day. The fire, however, having fallen at a distance from us, we were again immersed in dense darkness, and a heavy shower of ashes fell upon us, which we were compelled at times to shake off--otherwise we should have been crushed and buried in the heap.
"After a while, this dreadful darkness gradually disappeared like a cloud of smoke; the actual day returned, and with it the sun, though very faintly, and as when an eclipse is coming on. Every object that presented itself to our eyes (which were extremely weakened) seemed changed, being covered with a crust of white ashes, like a deep layer of snow. We returned to Misenum, where we refreshed ourselves as well as we could, and pa.s.sed an anxious night between hope and fear, though, indeed, with a much larger share of the latter; for the earthquake still continued, while several excited individuals ran up and down, augmenting their own and their friends" calamities by terrible predictions."
The graphic accounts of Pliny the Younger have been confirmed in every respect by scientific examination of the buried cities. The eruption was terrible in all its circ.u.mstances--the rolling mud, the cloud of darkness, the flashes of electric fire, the shaking earth--but yet more terrible in its novelty of character and the seemingly wide range of its influence. These combined causes would appear to have exercised a fatal effect on the Pompeians, and but for them nearly all might have escaped. Thus, the amphitheatre was crowded when the catastrophe occurred, but only two or three skeletons have been found in it, which probably were those of gladiators already killed or wounded. The bold, the prompt, and the energetic saved themselves by immediate flight; those who lingered through love or avarice, supine indifference, or palsying fear, perished.
Many sought refuge in the lower rooms or underground cellars of their houses, but there the steaming mud pursued and overtook them. Had it been otherwise, they must have died of hunger or suffocation, as all avenues of egress were absolutely blocked up.
It is impossible to exaggerate the horrors of the last day of the doomed city. The rumbling of the earth beneath; the dense obscurity and murky shadow of the heaven above; the long, heavy roll of the convulsed sea; the strident noise of the vapors and gases escaping from the mountain-crater; the shifting electric lights, crimson, emerald green, lurid yellow, azure, blood red, which at intervals relieved the blackness, only to make it ghastlier than before; the hot, hissing showers which descended like a rain of fire; the clash and clang of meeting rocks and riven stones; the burning houses and flaming vineyards; the hurrying fugitives, with wan faces and straining eyeb.a.l.l.s, calling on those they loved to follow them; the ashes, and cinders, and boiling mud, driving through the darkened streets, and pouring into the public places; above all, that fine, impalpable, but choking dust which entered everywhere, penetrating even to the lowest cellar, and against which human skill could devise no effectual protection; all these things must have combined into a whole of such unusual and such awful terror that the imagination cannot adequately realize it. The stoutest heart was appalled; the best-balanced mind lost its composure. The stern Roman soldier stood rigidly at his post, content to die if discipline required it, but even his iron nerves quailed at the death and destruction around him.
Many lost their reason, and wandered through the city, gibbering and shrieking lunatics. And none, we may be sure, who survived the peril, ever forgot the sights and scenes they had witnessed on that day of doom.
Three days and nights were thus endured with all the anguish of suspense and uncertainty. On the fourth day the darkness, by degrees, began to clear away. The day appeared, the sun shining forth; but all nature seemed changed. Buried beneath the lava lay temple and circus, the tribunal, the shrine, the frescoed wall, the bright mosaic floor; but there was neither life nor motion in either city of the dead, though the sea which once bore their argosies still shimmered in the sunshine, and the mountain which accomplished their destruction still breathed forth smoke and fire.
The scene was changed; all was over; smoke and vapor and showers had ceased, and Vesuvius had returned to its normal slumber. Pompeii and Herculaneum were no more. In their place was a desolated plain, with no monuments visible, no house to be seen--nothing but a great surface of white ashes, which hardened and petrified, and finally disintegrated into soil upon which, years after, might be seen the fruitful vine, the waving corn, and wild flowers in all their loveliness and beauty, hiding the hideous tragedy of a bygone age.
It was about the middle of the eighteenth century that systematic excavations in the ashes that covered Pompeii began. Since that time the work has been slow, though continuous, and great progress has been made in disinterring the buried city. To-day it is a munic.i.p.al museum of the Roman Empire as it was 1,800 years ago. The architecture is almost unmarred; the colors of decorated tiles on the walls are still bright; the wheel marks are fresh looking; the picture of domestic life as it was is complete, except for the people who were destroyed or driven from the city. No other place in all the world so completely portrays that period of the past to us as does Pompeii, overwhelmed by Vesuvius, hidden for centuries, and now once more in view to the world to-day.
CHAPTER XXVI.
MOUNT aeTNA AND THE SICILIAN HORRORS.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
=A Volcano with a Record of Twenty-five Centuries--Seventy-eight Recorded Eruptions--Three Hundred Thousand Inhabitants Dwelling on the Slopes of the Mountain and in the Valleys at its Base--Stories of Earthquake Shock and Lava Flows--Tales of Destruction--Described by Ancient and Modern Writers and Eye-Witnesses.=
Mount aetna, one of the most celebrated volcanoes in the world, is situated on the eastern sea-board of Sicily. The ancient poets often alluded to it, and by some it was feigned to be the prison of the giant Euceladus or Typhon, by others the forge of Hephaestus. The flames proceeded from the breath of Euceladus, the thunderous noises of the mountain were his groans, and when he turned upon his side, earthquakes shook the island. Pindar in his first Pythian ode for Hiero of aetna, winner in the chariot race in 474 B.C., exclaims:--He (Typhon) is fast bound by a pillar of the sky, even by snowy aetna, nursing the whole year"s length her dazzling snow. Whereout pure springs of unapproachable fire are vomited from the inmost depth: in the daytime the lava streams pour forth a lurid rush of smoke, but in the darkness a red rolling flame sweepeth rocks with uproar to the wide, deep sea. aeschylus (525-456 B.C.) speaks also of the "mighty Typhon." Thucydides (471-402 B.C.) alludes in the last lines of his third book to three early eruptions of the mountain. Many other early writers speak of aetna, among them Theocritus, Virgil, Ovid, Livy, Seneca, Lucan, Strabo, and Lucilius Junior. While the poets on the one hand had invested aetna with various supernatural attributes, and had made it the prison of a chained giant, and the workshop of a G.o.d, Lucretius and others endeavored to show that the eruptions and other phenomena of the mountain could be explained by the ordinary operations of nature.
If we pa.s.s to more modern times we find mention of aetna by Dante, Petrarch, Cardinal Bembo, and other middle age writers. In 1541 Fazello wrote a brief history of the mountain, and described an ascent. In 1591 Antonio Filoteo, who was born on aetna, published a work in Venice, in which he describes an eruption which he witnessed in 1536. He a.s.serts that the mountain was then, as now, divided into three "regions"--the first very arid, rugged, uneven, and full of broken rocks; the second covered with forests; and the third cultivated in the ordinary manner.
The great eruption of 1669 was described at length by the naturalist Borelli in the year of its occurrence, and a brief account of it was given by the Earl of Winchelsea, English amba.s.sador at Constantinople, who was returning home by way of the Straits of Messina at the time.
As the eruption of 1669 was the most considerable one of modern times, it attracted a great deal of attention, and was described by several eye-witnesses.
The height of aetna has been often determined. The earlier writers had very exaggerated notions on the subject, and a height of three and even four miles has been a.s.signed. It must be borne in mind that the cone of a volcano is liable to variations in height at different periods, and a diminution of more than three hundred feet has occurred during the course of a single eruption of aetna, owing to the falling of the cone of cinders into the crater. During the last sixty years, however, the height of the mountain has been practically constant at ten thousand eight hundred and seventy-four feet.
There are two cities, Catania and Aci Reale, and sixty-three towns or villages on Mount aetna. It is far more thickly populated than any other part of Sicily or Italy. No less than 300,000 people live on the mountain.
A remarkable feature of aetna is the large number of minor cones which are scattered over its sides. They look small in comparison with the great ma.s.s of the mountain, but in reality some of them are of large dimensions.
The best period for making the ascent of aetna is between June and September, after the melting of the winter snows, and before the falling of the autumnal rains. In winter there are frequently nine or ten miles of snow stretching from the summit downward, the paths are obliterated, and the guides sometimes refuse to accompany travelers.
Moreover, violent storms often rage in the upper regions of the mountain, and the wind acquires a force which it is difficult to withstand, and is at the same time piercingly cold.
A list of the eruptions of aetna from the earliest times has been given by several writers. The first eruption within the historical period probably happened in the seventh century B.C.; the second occurred in the time of Pythagoras. The third eruption, which was in 477 B.C., is mentioned by Thucydides, and it must have been the same eruption to which Pindar and aeschylus allude. An eruption mentioned by Thucydides happened in the year 426 B.C. An outburst of lava took place from Monte di Moja, the most northerly of the minor cones of aetna, in 396 B.C., and following the course of the river Acesines, now the Alcantara, entered the sea near the site of the Greek colony of Naxos (now Capo di Schiso). We have no record of any further eruption for 256 years, till the year 140 B.C. Six years later an eruption occurred, and the same authorities mention an eruption in the year 126 B.C. Four years later Katana was nearly destroyed by a new eruption.
Another, of which we possess no details, occurred during the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, 49 B.C. Livy speaks of an earthquake which took place in 43 B.C., shortly before the death of Caesar, which it was believed to portend. In 38 B.C. and 32 B.C. eruptions took place.
The next eruption of which we hear is that mentioned by Suetonius in his life of Caligula. This was in 40 A.D. An eruption occurred in 72 A.D., after which aetna was quiescent for nearly two centuries, but in the year 253, in the reign of the Emperor Decius, a violent eruption lasting nine days is recorded. According to Carrera and Photius, an eruption occurred in the year 420. We now find no further record for nearly four hundred years. Geoffrey of Viterbo states that there was an eruption in 812, when Charlemagne was in Messina. After another long interval, in this case of more than three centuries and a half, the mountain again showed activity. In February, 1169, one of the most disastrous eruptions on record took place. A violent earthquake, which was felt as far as Reggio, destroyed Catania in the course of a few minutes, burying fifteen thousand people beneath the ruins. It was the vigil of the feast of St. Agatha, and the cathedral of Catania was crowded with people, who were all buried beneath the ruins, together with the bishops and forty-four Benedictine monks. The side of the cone of the great crater toward Taormina fell into the crater.
There was a great eruption from the eastern side of the mountain in 1181. Lava descended in the same vicinity in 1285. In 1329 Speziale was in Catania, and witnessed a very violent eruption, of which he has left us an account. On the evening of June 28th, about the hour of vespers, aetna was strongly convulsed, terrible noises were emitted, and flames issued from the south side of the mountain. A new crater, Monte Lepre, opened above the rock of Musarra, and emitted large quant.i.ties of dense black smoke. Soon after a torrent of lava poured from the crater, and red-hot ma.s.ses of rock were projected into the air. Four years after the last eruption it is recorded by Silvaggio that a fresh outburst took place. A ma.n.u.script preserved in the archives of the cathedral of Catania mentions an eruption which took place on August 6, 1371, which caused the destruction of numerous olive groves near the city. An eruption which lasted for twelve days commenced in November, 1408. A violent earthquake in 1444 caused the cone of the mountain to fall into the great crater. An eruption of short duration, of which we have no details, occurred in 1447; and after this aetna was quiescent for eighty-nine years.
Cardinal Bembo and Fazello mention an eruption which took place toward the close of the fifteenth century. In March, 1536, a quant.i.ty of lava issued from the great crater, and several new apertures opened near the summit of the mountain and emitted lava.
A year later, in May, 1537, a fresh outburst occurred. A number of new mouths were opened on the south slope near La Fontanelle, and a quant.i.ty of lava burst forth which flowed in the direction of Catania, destroying a part of Nicolosi, and St. Antonio. In four days the lava ran fifteen miles. The cone of the great crater suddenly fell in, so as to become level with the Piano del Lago. The height of the mountain was thus diminished by 320 feet. Three new craters opened in November, 1566, on the northeast slope of the mountain. In 1579, 1603, 1607, 1610, 1614, and 1619, unimportant eruptions occurred. In February, 1633, Nicolosi was partly destroyed by a violent earthquake, and in the following December, earthquakes became frequent around the mountain.
In 1646 a new mouth opened on the northeast side, and five years later several new mouths opened on the west side of the mountain and poured out vast volumes of lava which threatened to overwhelm Bronte. We have a more detailed account of the eruption of 1669 than any previous one.
It was observed by many men of different nations, and there are a number of narratives regarding it. The eruption was in every respect one of the most terrible on record. On March 8th, the sun was obscured and a whirlwind blew over the face of the mountain; at the same time earthquakes were felt, and they continued to increase in violence for three days, at the end of which Nicolosi was converted into a heap of ruins.
On the morning of the 11th a fissure nearly twelve miles in length opened in the side of the mountain, and extended from the Piano di St.
Leo to Monte Frumento, a mile from the summit. The fissure was only six feet wide, but it seemed to be of unknown depth, and a bright light proceeded from it. Six mouths opened in a line with the princ.i.p.al fissure, and discharged vast volumes of smoke, accompanied by low bellowing, which could be heard forty miles off. Toward the close of the day a crater opened about a mile below the others, and ejected red-hot stones to a considerable distance, and afterward sand and ashes, which covered the country for a distance of sixty miles.
The new crater soon vomited forth a torrent of lava, which presented a front of two miles. It encircled Monpilieri, and afterward flowed toward Belpa.s.so, a town of 8,000 inhabitants, which was speedily destroyed. Seven mouths of fire opened around the new crater, and in three days united with it, forming one large crater 800 feet in diameter. The torrent of lava had continued to flow, and it destroyed the town of Mascalucia on March 23d. On the same day the crater cast up great quant.i.ties of sand, ashes, and scoriae, and formed above itself the great double coned hill called Monti Rossi, from the red color of the ashes of which it is mainly composed. On the 25th very violent earthquakes occurred, and the cone of the great central crater was shaken down into the crater for the fifth time since the beginning of the first century A.D. The original current of lava had divided into three streams, one of which destroyed San Pietro, the second Camporotondo, and the third the lands about Mascalucia, and afterward the village of Misterbianco. Fourteen villages were afterward swept out of existence, and the lava made its way toward Catania. At Albanello, two miles from the city, it undermined a hill covered with corn fields, and carried it forward a considerable distance; a vineyard was also seen floating on its fiery surface.
When the lava reached the walls of Catania, it acc.u.mulated without progression until it rose to the top of the wall, sixty feet in height, and it then fell over in a fiery cascade and overwhelmed a part of the city. Another portion of the same stream threw down 120 feet of the wall and carried death and destruction in its course. On April 23d the lava reached the sea, which it entered as a stream 1800 feet broad and forty feet deep. On reaching the sea the water, of course, began to boil violently, and clouds of steam arose, carrying with them particles of scoriae. The volume of lava emitted during this eruption amounted to many millions of cubic feet. Fewara considers that the length of the stream was at least fifteen miles, while its average width was between two and three miles, so that it covered at least forty square miles of surface.
For a few years after this terrible eruption aetna was quiescent, but in 1682 a new mouth opened on the east side of the mountain, and lava issued from it and rushed down the precipices of the Val del Bue.
Early in January, 1693, clouds of black smoke poured from the great crater, and loud noises resembling the discharge of artillery, were heard. A violent earthquake followed, and Catania was shaken to the ground, burying 18,000 of its inhabitants. It is said that in all fifty cities and towns were destroyed in Sicily, together with approximately 100,000 inhabitants.
The following year witnessed another eruption, but no serious disaster resulted. In March, 1702, three mouths opened in the Contrada del Trif.a.glietto, near the head of the Val del Bue. In 1723, 1732, 1735, 1744, and 1747, slight eruptions occurred. Early in the year 1775 aetna began to show signs of disturbance; a great column of black smoke issued from the crater, from which forked lightning was frequently emitted. Loud detonations were heard and two streams of lava issued from the crater. A new mouth opened near Rocca di Musarra in the Val del Bue, four miles from the summit, and a quant.i.ty of lava was ejected from it. An extraordinary flood of water descended from Val del Bue, carrying all before it, and strewing its path with large blocks. Recupero estimated the volume of water at 16,000,000 cubic feet, probably a greater amount than could be furnished by the sudden melting of all the winter"s snow on the mountain. It formed a channel two miles broad, and in some places thirty-four feet deep, and it flowed at the rate of a mile in a minute and a half during the first twelve miles of its course. The flood was probably produced by the melting not only of the winter"s snow, but also of older layers of ice, which were suddenly liquified by the permeation of hot steam and lava, and which had been previously preserved from melting by a deposit of sand and ashes, as in the case of the ancient glacier found near the summit of the mountain in 1828.
In November, 1758, a smart shock of earthquake caused the cone of the great crater to fall in, but no eruption followed. In 1759, 1763, 1766, and 1780, eruptions were noted, and on May 18, 1780, a fissure opened on the southwest side of the mountain and extended from the base of the great crater for seven miles, terminating in a new mouth from which a stream of lava emanated. This encountered the cone of Palmintelli in its course, and separated into two branches, each of which was about 4,000 feet wide. Other mouths opened later in the year, and emitted larger quant.i.ties of lava, while in 1781 and 1787 there were slight eruptions. Five years later a fresh outbreak occurred; earthquakes were prevalent, and vast volumes of smoke were carried out to sea, seeming to form a gigantic bridge between Sicily and Africa. A torrent of lava flowed toward Aderno, and a second flowed into the Val del Bue as far as Zuccolaro. A pit called La Cisterna, forty feet in diameter, opened in the Piano del Lago near the great cone, and ejected smoke and ma.s.ses of old lava saturated with water. Several mouths opened below the crater, and the country round about Zaffarana was desolated.
In 1797, 1798, 1799, 1800, 1802, 1805, and 1808 slight eruptions occurred. In March, 1809, no less than twenty-one mouths of fire opened between the summit of the mountain and Castiglione, and two years afterward more than thirty mouths opened in a line running eastward from the summit for five miles. They ejected jets of fire, accompanied by much smoke. In 1819 five new mouths of fire opened near the scene of the eruption of 1811; three of these united into one large crater, and poured forth a quant.i.ty of lava into the Val del Bue. The lava flowed until it reached a nearly perpendicular precipice at the head of the valley of Calanna, over which it fell in a cascade, and being hardened by its descent, it was forced against the sides of the tufaceous rock at the bottom, so as to produce an extraordinary amount of abrasion, accompanied by clouds of dust worn off by the friction. Mr. Scrope observed that the lava flowed at the rate of about three feet an hour nine months after its emission.
Eruptions occurred in 1831, 1832, 1838, and 1842. Near the end of the following year, fifteen mouths of fire opened near the crater of 1832, at a height of 7,000 feet above the sea. They began by discharging scoriae and sand, and afterward lava, which divided into three streams, the two outer of which soon came to a standstill, while the central stream continued to flow at the rapid rate of 180 feet a minute, the descent being an angle of 25. The heat at a distance of 120 feet from the current was 90 F. A new crater opened just above Bronte, and discharged lava which threatened the town, but it fortunately encountered Monte Vittoria, and was diverted into another course. While a number of the inhabitants of Bronte were watching the progress of the lava, the front of the stream was suddenly blown out as by an explosion of gunpowder. In an instant red-hot ma.s.ses were hurled in every direction, and a cloud of vapor enveloped everything.
Thirty-six persons were killed on the spot, and twenty survived but a few hours.
A very violent eruption, which lasted more than nine months, commenced on the 26th of August, 1852. It was first witnessed by a party of six English tourists, who were ascending the mountain from Nicolosi in order to witness the sun rise from the summit. As they approached the Casa Inglesi the crater commenced to give forth ashes and flames of fire. In a narrow defile they were met by a violent hurricane, which overthrew both the mules and the riders, and forced them toward the precipices of Val del Bue. They sheltered themselves beneath some ma.s.ses of lava, when suddenly an earthquake shook the mountain, and the mules fled in terror. They returned on foot toward daylight to Nicolosi, fortunately without having sustained injury. In the course of the night many rifts opened in that part of Val del Bue called the Balzo di Trif.a.glietto, and a great fissure opened at the base of Giannicola Grande, and a crater was thrown up, from which for seventeen days showers of sand and scoriae were ejected.
During the next day a quant.i.ty of lava flowed down into the Val del Bue, branching off so that one stream flowed to the foot of Mount Finocchio, while the other flowed to Mount Calanna. The eruption continued with abated violence during the early months of 1853, and did not fully cease until May 27th. The entire ma.s.s of lava ejected is estimated to be equal to an area six miles long by two miles broad, with an average depth of about twelve feet.