Etna Part 5

30. A year later, in May, 1537, a fresh outburst occurred; a number of new mouths were opened on the south slope of the mountain near La Fontanelle, and a quant.i.ty of lava was emitted, which flowed in the direction of Catania, destroying a part of Nicolosi, and S. Antonio. In four days the lava had run fifteen miles. At the same time violent shocks of earthquake occurred all over Sicily, the inhabitants thought that the last day had come, and many prepared for their end by receiving Extreme Unction. According to Filoteo the noises were so violent that many persons were struck deaf. The sun was obscured by smoke and dust, ashes fell in sufficient quant.i.ties to destroy the olive plantations of Messina, and were even carried 300 miles out to sea. 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.

31. Three new craters opened in November, 1566, on the north-east slope of the mountain. Quant.i.ties of lava were emitted, which flowed towards Linguaglossa and Randazzo.

32. A slight eruption, of which we have no details, occurred in 1579.

33. According to Carrera, an eruption occurred in June, 1603. The mountain was shaken with earthquakes, and great volumes of smoke and flame were emitted.

34. A stream of lava issued from the great crater four years later, and filled up the lake which had previously existed in the Piano del Lago.

35. In February, 1610, lava was emitted from the great crater. It flowed towards Aderno, and filled up the bed of the Simeto, a little above the Ponte di Carcaci. A few months later a second stream destroyed a large portion of the forest Del Pino.

36. In 1614 several new craters were opened between Randazzo and the great crater on the north side of the mountain. A quant.i.ty of lava issued from them, which united into one stream, and ran for ten miles, destroying a great deal of wooded country.

37. A slight eruption occurred in 1619.

38. In February, 1633, Nicolosi was partially destroyed by a violent earthquake; and in the following December earthquakes became frequent on the mountain. A new crater opened above the cone called Serrapizzuta, five miles from the great crater, and emitted a good deal of lava. A second crater afterwards opened about two miles to the east of the former. The eruption lasted off and on for four years: the ejected lava then covered a tract eighteen miles in length by two miles in width, the thickness sometimes attaining 42 feet. In 1643 a severe earthquake occurred, which was mainly felt on the west side of the mountain.

39. In 1646 a new mouth opened on the north-north-east side of the mountain, five miles from the great crater. The lava flowed towards Castiglione.

40. In February, 1651, several new mouths opened on the west side of the mountain, and poured out vast volumes of lava which threatened to overwhelm Bronte. In twenty-four hours the lava ran sixteen miles with a breadth of four miles.

41. We have a more detailed account of the eruption of 1669 than of any previous outburst. It was observed by many men of different nations; and we find accounts of it in our own _Philosophical Transactions_, in French, and of course in Italian. Perhaps the most accurate and complete description is that given by Alfonso Borelli, Professor of Mathematics in Catania. The eruption was, in every respect, one of the most terrible on record. On the 8th of March the sun was obscured, and a whirlwind blew over the face of the mountain; at the same time earthquakes commenced, and continued to increase in violence for three days, when 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 S. 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; they emitted vast columns of smoke, accompanied by loud bellowings which could be heard 40 miles off. Towards the close of the day, a crater opened about a mile below the others, and it ejected red hot stones to a considerable distance, and afterwards sand and ashes which covered the country for a distance of 60 miles. The new crater soon vomited forth a torrent of lava which presented a front of two miles, it encircled Monpilieri, and afterwards flowed towards Belpa.s.so, a town of 8000 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 all this time continued to descend, and it destroyed the town of Mascalucia on the 23rd of March. 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 now called Monti Rossi from the red colour 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 first century A.D. The original current of lava had divided into three streams, one of which destroyed S. Pietro, the second Camporotondo, and the third the lands about Mascalucia, and afterwards the village of Misterbianco. Fourteen villages were altogether destroyed, and the lava was on its way to Catania. At Albanelli, two miles from the city, it undermined a hill covered with cornfields, and carried it forward a considerable distance; a vineyard was also seen to be 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, 60 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 flowed into the city. On the 23rd of April the lava reached the sea, which it entered as a stream 600 yards broad and 40 feet deep. The stream had moved at the rate of thirteen miles in twenty days, but as it cooled it moved less quickly, and during the last twenty-three days of its course it only moved two miles. On reaching the sea the water of course began to boil violently, and clouds of steam arose, carrying with them particles of scoriae.

Towards the end of April the stream on the west side of Catania, which had appeared to be consolidated, again burst forth, and flowed into the garden of the Benedictine Monastery of S. Niccola, and then branched off into the city. Attempts were made to build walls to arrest its progress. An attempt of another kind was made by a gentleman of Catania, named Pappalardo, who took fifty men with him, having previously provided them with skins for protection from the intense heat, and with crowbars to effect an opening in the lava. They pierced the solid outer crust of solidified lava, and a rivulet of the molten interior immediately gushed out, and flowed in the direction of Paterno; whereupon 500 men of that town, alarmed for its safety, took up arms, and caused Pappalardo and his men to desist. The lava did not altogether stop for four months; and two years after it had ceased to flow it was found to be red hot beneath the surface. Even eight years after the eruption quant.i.ties of steam escaped from the lava after a shower of rain. The stones which were ejected from the crater during this eruption were often of considerable magnitude, and Borelli calculated that the diameter of one which he saw was 50 feet; it was thrown to a distance of a mile, and as it fell it penetrated the earth to a depth of 23 feet.

The volume of lava emitted during this eruption amounted to many millions of cubic feet: Ferrara 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.

In a somewhat rare tract,[19] Lord Winchelsea, who was returning to England from Constantinople, and who landed at Catania, gives an account of what he saw of the eruption. He appears to have been frightened at the sight, and took good care to keep in a safe place; hence his letter, which is a short one, is mainly founded on hearsay. However, he says, "I could discern the river of fire to descend the mountain, of a terrible fiery or red colour, and stones of a paler red to swim thereon, and to be as big as an ordinary table.... Of 20,000 persons which inhabited Catania, 3000 did only remain; all their goods are carried away, the cannon of bra.s.s are removed out of the castle, some great bells taken down, the city gates walled up next the fire, and preparations made by all to abandon the city." The n.o.ble earl is less happy in his scientific ideas than in his general statement of the facts of which he was an eye-witness; we can only hope that he joined the recently-formed Royal Society on his return to England, and listened to Robert Hooke's discourse on fire. In describing the lava, Lord Winchelsea says, "The composition of this fire, stones, and cinders, are sulphur, nitre, quicksilver, sal-ammoniac, lead, iron, bra.s.s, and all other mettals!"

Two other accounts are appended to the above letter; in one of these we are told that as the lava approached Catania, the various religious bodies carried their relics in procession, "followed by great mult.i.tudes of people, some of them mortifying themselves with whips, and other signs of penance, with great complaints and cries, expressing their dreadful expectation of the events of those prodigious fiery inundations." In the midst of all this, news was brought that a large band of robbers had taken advantage of the general distress, and were robbing right and left, and murdering the people: whereupon a troop of Spanish horse was sent out to protect the city and country, three pair of gallows were set up, and such as were found robbing were executed without trial by martial law.

[19] "A true and exact relation of the late prodigious earthquake and eruption of Mount aetna or Monte Gibello; as it came in a letter written to his Majesty from Naples by the Rt. Honble. the Earl of Winchelsea late Amba.s.sadour at Constantinople, who in his return from thence visiting Catania in the Island of Sicily, was an eye-witness of that dreadful spectacle." Published by Authority. Printed by T. Newcomb in the Savoy. 1669.

As the lava streams approached the city, the Senate, accompanied by the Bishop and all the clergy, secular and regular, went in procession out of the city to Monte di S. Sofia with all their relics, etc. There they erected an altar in view of the burning mountain, and celebrated ma.s.s, "and used the exorcismes accustomed upon such extraordinary occasions, all which time the mountain ceased not as before with excessive roaring to throw up its smoak and flames with extraordinary violence, and abundance of great stones, which were carried through the air."

42. For a few years after this terrible eruption Etna was quiescent, but in 1682 a new mouth opened on the east side of the mountain, a little below the summit, and above the Val del Bove. Lava issued from it, and rushed down the precipices of the Val del Bove as far as the rock of Musarra.

43. Six years later a torrent of lava burst from an opening in the great cone, and flowed into the Val del Bove for a distance of three miles.

44. In the following year lava was emitted from a mouth in the Val del Bove, and it descended for about ten miles, destroying everything in its course, until it reached a little valley near Macchia.

45. Early in January 1693, clouds of black smoke were poured from the great crater, and loud noises resembling the discharge of artillery were heard. A violent earthquake succeeded, and Catania was shaken to the ground, burying 18,000 of its inhabitants in the ruins. It is said that in all fifty towns were destroyed in Sicily, together with from 60,000 to 100,000 inhabitants. Lava was emitted from the crater, which was lowered by the eruption.

46. In the following year Etna again entered into eruption, ejecting large quant.i.ties of ashes, some of which were carried as far as Malta.

47. In March 1702, three mouths opened in the Contrada del Trifoglietto, near the head of the Val del Bove. Lava was emitted from them, which flowed into the Valley of Calanna.

48. Towards the end of 1723 loud bellowings issued from the mountain; earthquakes occurred, and a torrent of lava issued from the crater, which flowed towards Bronte, through the Bosco di Bronte.

49. A small lava stream issued from the crater in 1732, and descended the western slope of the mountain, but without producing any damage.

50. In October 1735, the usual noises which presage an eruption were heard, earthquakes followed, and a little later the crater emitted flames and red-hot stones. Lava also issued from it, and the stream divided into three branches, one of which flowed towards Bronte, a second towards Linguaglossa, and a third towards Mascali; but they did not get beyond the upper regions of the mountain.

51. In 1744 the mountain threw out great quant.i.ties of ashes, but no lava.

52. In 1747 a quant.i.ty of lava flowed from the great crater into the Val del Bove, and the height of the cone was considerably increased during the eruption.

53. Early in the year 1755, Etna 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 the Rocca di Musarra in the Val del Bove, four miles from the summit, and a quant.i.ty of lava was ejected from it. An extraordinary flood of water descended from the Val del Bove, carrying all before it, and strewing its path, with huge blocks. Recupero estimated the volume of water as 16,000,000 cubic feet, probably a greater amount than could be furnished by the 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. Lyell considers 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 melted 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 occurred at the time.

54. Great quant.i.ties of ashes, and some small streams of lava, were emitted from the crater in 1759, a little later the cone, which had been again raised by the eruption, gave way, and the greater part of it fell into the crater. Two parts of it however were left standing.

55. Severe shocks of earthquakes were felt on the east side of the mountain in 1763, and a new mouth opened in the Bosco di Bronte, ten miles from the town, between Monte Rosso and Monte Lepre. Four other mouths were afterwards opened in a line; they threw up quant.i.ties of scoriae and ashes, and afterwards lava. In the middle of June several mouths opened on the south side of the mountain, and a fissure 2000 feet long opened downwards in a southerly direction. The lava divided into two branches, the larger of which was ten miles long and 250 feet wide, with a depth of 25 feet.

56. Several new mouths opened in the spring of 1766, and ejected large volumes of ashes, also streams of lava, which flowed in the direction of Nicolosi and Pedara. The Canon Recupero, one of the historians of Etna, witnessed this eruption, and narrowly escaped being destroyed. He had ascended a small hill 50 feet high, of ancient volcanic matter, in order to witness the approach of the lava stream which was slowly advancing with a front of two miles and a half. Suddenly two small streams detached themselves from the main stream, and ran rapidly towards the hill. Recupero and his guide at once hastened to descend, and had barely escaped when they saw the hill surrounded by lava, and in a few minutes it was melted down and sank into the molten ma.s.s.

57. In the early part of 1780, earthquakes were felt all over Sicily, and on the 18th of May a fissure opened on the south-west 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 400 feet wide. Other mouths opened later in the year, and emitted large quant.i.ties of lava, which devastated the country of Montemazzo.

58. In 1781 the volcano emitted a quant.i.ty of lava which flowed into the Val del Bove. Clouds of grey ashes were also ejected. At the commencement of the great Calabrian earthquake of 1783, Etna ejected large quant.i.ties of smoke, but it was otherwise quiescent.

59. In the middle of 1787 lava burst from the great crater, which also discharged quant.i.ties of sand, scoriae, and red-hot ashes. Large heated ma.s.ses of rock were ejected to a great height, and subterranean bellowings were heard by the dwellers on the mountain.

60. Five years afterwards a fresh outburst occurred, earthquakes were prevalent, and vast volumes of smoke bore to seaward, and seemed to bridge the sea between Sicily and Africa. A torrent of lava flowed towards Aderno, and a second flowed into the Val del Bove as far as Zoccolaro. A pit called _La Cisterna_, 40 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. The Abate Ferrara, the author of the _Descrizione dell' Etna_, witnessed this eruption: "I shall never forget," he writes, "that this last mouth opened precisely on the spot where, the day before, I had made my meal with a shepherd.

On my return next day he related how, after a stunning explosion, the rocks on which we had sat together were blown into the air, and a mouth opened, discharging a flood of fire, which, rushing down with the rapidity of water, hardly gave him time to make his escape."

61. In 1797 a slight eruption occurred, and the great crater threw out ashes and sand, but no lava. Earthquakes were frequent.

62. In the following year lava was emitted, and severe earthquakes occurred.

63. The eruptions continued during 1799.

64. In February 1800 loud explosions were heard by the dwellers on the mountain, and columns of fire issued from the crater, accompanied by forked lightning. This was succeeded by a discharge of hot ashes and scoriae, which, falling on the snows acc.u.mulated near the summit of the mountain, produced devastating floods of water.

65. In November 1802 a new mouth opened near the Rocca di Musarra in the Val del Bove, which emitted a copious stream of lava. In a day and a half the lava had run twelve miles.

66. In 1805 the great crater was in a state of eruption, and a cone was thrown up within it to a height of 1,050 feet.

67. In 1808 the mountain again became active, and fire and smoke were emitted from the crater.

68. In March 1809, no less than twenty-one mouths of fire opened in the direction of Castiglione. They ejected volumes of smoke, large quant.i.ties of scoriae and ashes, and afterwards lava, which, uniting into one torrent, flowed with a front of 450 feet for 8 miles. Fissures were formed in the earth, and loud explosions constantly occurred within the great crater; a small cone was thrown up.

69. Two years afterwards more than thirty mouths opened in a line running eastwards for five miles. They ejected jets of fire accompanied by much smoke. The eruptions soon diminished in the higher mouths, and became more and more violent in the lower mouths, until the eruption centred in the lowest one called S. Simone, near the head of the Val del Bove. From this, great black clouds, having a l.u.s.tre like that of black wool, issued, and afterwards quant.i.ties of lava, which formed a stream a mile wide, and eight miles long. It flowed nearly as far as the village of Milo. Frequent earthquakes accompanied this outburst, and they continued in various parts of the island for the following five years.

70. 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 Bove. The lava flowed until it reached a nearly perpendicular precipice at the bend 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 a yard an hour, nine months after its emission.

71. A slight eruption occurred in 1831 from the great crater, which threw out lava on its northern side.

72. In October of the following year a violent eruption occurred. A new crater was formed in the Val del Serbo, above Bronte and three miles from the summit. Seven mouths afterwards opened, three miles below the first. From one of these lava was emitted, which flowed to within a mile and a half of Bronte. The stream was a mile and a half broad, and 40 feet deep.

73. A slight eruption occurred in 1838, when a small quant.i.ty of lava was poured from the great crater into the Val del Bove.

74. Four years later the crater discharged ashes and scoriae, and lava burst from the cone 300 feet from the summit. It flowed into the Val del Bove, in a stream 600 feet wide, and it came to a standstill ten miles from the summit.