burning readily when submitted to the flame; there are shelves, on which are piled stores of raisins, figs and chestnuts; there are amphorae containing the rare wine for which Campania was so famous.”

Here you saw a new altar of white marble, wondrously beautiful, just from the hands of the sculptor; “an enclosure was building all round; the mortar just dashed against the side of the wall was but half spread out; you saw the long, sliding stroke of the trowel about to return and obliterate its own track; but it never returned; the hand of the workman was suddenly arrested, and the whole looks so fresh and new that you would almost swear that the mason had only gone to his dinner, and about to come back immediately to smooth the roughness.”

The younger Pliny tells us of his uncle’s death, and of the suddenness of the calamity. The people were in the amphitheater when the volcano burst forth. The elder Pliny, in command of the fleet at Misenum, was called by his sister to notice a strange cloud that had just appeared. He had just returned from a walk, bathed, and gone to his study. This was August 24, A. D. 79, about 1 P.M. The dense cloud occasionally glowed with light; again, it was of inky blackness. It was the “pine tree banner,” since become so familiar to the Neapolitans. Pliny at once started for his galleys, determined to have a closer view of the strange scene. As he went to the shore he received a note from a lady who lived at the base of the mountain, urging him to come to her assistance. He set out at once to render what aid he could; “for the villas stood extremely thick upon that lovely coast.” They neared the mount; cinders, pumice, ashes, and glowing stones fell on and among the vessels. Sternly ordering the frightened crew to press on, Pliny stood in the bow of his vessel, calmly dictating notes and observations on the awful scene. Reaching Stabiae, he found a friend in great fear, preparing for flight, and waiting for a change of wind. Pliny ordered baths, and sat calmly down to supper, assuring his friend that the lurid flames on the mountain sides were but villages fired by the heated stones. Retiring to rest, his anxious friends heard him snoring. Finding they were about to be entombed in the falling cinders, they roused him, and all, tying pillows on their heads as protection from the showers of stones, sought the seashore; but the waves ran too high for them to embark. It was still dark as Erebus in the limit of the cloud, though already broad day. Drinking some water, Pliny stretched himself on a mat; but an unusual rush of sulphurous vapor compelled the company to disperse, and two servants assisted him to rise, but he at once fell back dead. Perhaps the noxious vapors were in greater quantity near the ground. His nephew tells us he always had weak lungs. The company fled. Three days later, Pliny’s body was found “looking more like a man asleep than dead.” At Misenum, fourteen miles away, the earth was constantly and violently shaken. Houses were toppling down. Chariots could not be steadied, even by supporting them with large stones. The sea rushed back, leaving many marine animals stranded high and dry. The dark cloud on Vesuvius flamed and roared. The cloud enveloped Misenum and spread to Capreæ. “Nothing was to be heard but the shrieks of women and children, and the cries of men; some were calling for their children, others for their parents, others for their husbands, and only distinguishing each other by their voices; one was lamenting his own fate, another that of his family; some wished to die that they might escape the dreadful fear of death; but the greater part imagined that the last and eternal night was come, which was to destroy the gods and the world together.” Then came the flash of flames; then darkness and ashes, blinding, crushing, burying. Stabiae also was buried. But the destruction of the two great cities is given no word; it was sudden and complete. The ruins show they were shattered by an earthquake. Then showers of broken lava rushed upon Herculaneum; while Pompeii, farther away, was reached only by the cinder-showers. Dion Cassius tells us the people were seated in the theatres when the shock came.

In their terror, every object was distorted and magnified. “A multitude of men, of superhuman stature, resembling giants, appeared sometimes on the mountains, sometimes in the environs; stones and smoke were thrown out; then the giants seemed to rise again, while the sounds of trumpets were heard.”

Cassius, however, wrote a century and a half after the disaster; and the chief value of his testimony is to show how terrible and lasting an impression had been made upon the Campanians, from whom he derived his narrative.

After the desolation, the site of Pompeii was searched for such relics as might be of practical use elsewhere. The search was rough and destructive. The Emperor Alexander Severus made the place a “sort of quarry from which he drew a great quantity of marbles, columns and beautiful statues which he employed in adorning the edifices which he constructed at Rome. Modern research has discovered but few gold and silver articles, coins, and statues. It has developed however, a far more fearful and faithful picture of the eruption than has been given by any historian. The clouds of falling ashes so enveloped each object as to preserve an exact impression, from which casts have been made, showing every curve and line, even to the texture of the clothes. So we look upon the death-agony, and conceive the terrors of the scene.

Here is the arena. Here were skeletons; perhaps of gladiators already slain; perhaps of wounded men, unable to rise, who rolled and gasped, and struggled in the choking gloom. There is the prison; you may see the fetters still round the leg bones of the inmates.

Here stood the temple of Isis. On that pedestal was a beautiful image of her, draped in purple and gold. In the next room lay a priest beside the battered wall, with axe in hand. In the next room sat a priest overtaken at his dinner. In other cloisters lay other priests, who had remained at the temple, perhaps deeming Isis would protect them in that awful hour. Close by the prison door lay a skeleton with a handful of silver coins. Mayhap some one had perished there while endeavoring to bribe the jailor to release a prisoned friend. Close by that column, in his narrow niche, a Roman sentry stood, full armed; observing to the last, stern, unflinching obedience to superior powers, who neglected to relieve him in the terror of the time.

In the vault of a beautiful suburban villa of Diomed, lay eighteen adults, a boy, and an infant, huddled together in attitudes terribly expressive of the agony of a lingering death. To the skulls of the children still clung their long, blonde hair. There was the impress left by the bust of a young girl of striking beauty. Near the garden gate without the house were two skeletons; one with a bunch of keys and a quantity of money; the other with a number of silver vases. Doubtless the family had thought to escape by retiring to the well-provisioned cellar; while two slaves endeavored to profit by the confusion to escape with their booty. The stifling sulphureous vapor found them out.

In the house of the Faun stood the skeleton of a woman; her hands raised over her head. Her scattered jewels lay about the floor. Endeavoring at length to leave the house, she found the doorway blocked with ashes. The flooring of the upper rooms began to fall, and she lifted her arms in vain attempt to stay the crumbling roof. Thus was she found.

In a garden near by a woman was found seven feet from the earth. She had surmounted many obstacles, but perished as she scaled a wall.

Beneath a staircase lay a man who had with him a vast treasure of gold and silver. He had preserved it at a terrible cost. Near by were five others who had met a similar fate. They lay fifteen feet above the earth. Plunderers were these, overpowered by a rush of mephitic gas while delving for buried treasures.

Here lay two bodies, feet to feet—mother and daughter, perhaps. The former lay outstretched and tranquil; the young girl of fifteen, in an attitude expressive of frightful agony. Her legs are drawn up and her hands clinched. With one hand she had drawn her veil about her head, to screen herself from the ashes and smoke. The form and texture of her dress are clearly seen; and through its rents the fair young skin appears like polished marble.

Close by lay a young woman of high rank; young, richly dressed and beautiful. One upraised arm and her clenched hands tell plainer than words her agony and despair. A man—tall, stalwart, in coarse dress and nail-studded sandals, lay at hand. Upon his back, with straightened limbs and extended arms, he had resolved, since unable to escape, to die like a man. His powerful features are clearly shown, and a portion of his moustache adheres to the plaster cast.

Such are sights from which the veil of time has at last been lifted. How many perished in that fearful outbreak we shall never know. Seven hundred skeletons have been found in one-third of the city of Pompeii. Perhaps two thousand perished there. But of the scores who fled from the city, from suburban villas, from villages along the mountain, and who were overtaken by the fiery storm ere they reached a place of safety, who shall tell? Who may declare the fate of the lady who appealed to the Roman admiral Pliny for relief? Such questions each may determine for himself. History will preserve an eternal silence.

Such are the facts concerning the first great historic eruption of Vesuvius. That volcanic phenomena were known to the ancients we have already seen; but the character of Vesuvius seems to have been unsuspected. The Greeks knew of the mountain top as a depressed plain, covered with groves and wild vines. Spartacus and his gladiators, with their thousands of followers, had their fortified camp there. Strabo called it a volcanic mountain, but Pliny the elder did not include it in his list of volcanoes. The fertile, rounded slopes were covered with well-tilled fields.

But the neighboring regions were active, though Vesuvius was not. Pithecusa, the modern Ischia, was often and terribly shaken, and various attempts to settle upon it were in consequence abandoned. Poisonous gases poured forth, even when there was no active eruption.

Still nearer Vesuvius lay the noted lake Avernus, which in Roman mythology was the gateway of hell. It was said to exhale noxious vapors so powerful that birds could not cross it. At the present day it is only a pretty lake, without any unusual properties. It appears to cover an extinct crater.

In the year 63 a great earthquake was felt in the Vesuvian region. Hundreds of lives were lost, and great damage was done in many cities; and numerous lighter shocks occurred during the next sixteen years. No one seems to have apprehended any danger from the mountain. How long it had remained dormant is unknown. But Pompeii and Herculaneum are both built upon lava beds. That Pompeii itself was a very old city is clearly established. In general outline it is elliptical, nearly two miles in circuit, the entire area being one hundred and sixty acres. Characters upon many of the foundation stones would seem to indicate a period earlier than the Etruscan occupation; while other portions, especially the towers, are certainly of later date. It is quite fair to suppose that Vesuvius, from these facts, had lain quiet for a thousand years or more.

One effect of this first eruption of Vesuvius was to break down the western wall of the crater and destroy the entire side of the mountain next the sea, leaving as the only remains of the ancient crater a little ridge on the south flank, and that portion, which under the name of Somma, still encircles the present cone.

From the time of its first eruption, the restlessness of Vesuvius has been well observed. The next action occurred in the year 203. In the meantime the sides of the crater had become overgrown with brushwood and forest trees, and the basin itself was a favorite haunt of wild boars. In the year 472 the mountain broke forth with more violence than at either of the former periods. The roaring was simply indescribable. The clouds of ashes spread over the entire adjacent region. Houses toppled down miles away. Scores of people were suffocated. The ashes fell in showers at Constantinople and Tripoli.

Other eruptions followed in 512, 685, and 993. No stream of molten lava issued at any of these. But in 1036, a great eruption took place, during which, we are told, the lava poured forth from fissures in the sides, as well as from the top, and ran in a broad and deep stream into the sea. Thirteen years later another similar outbreak occurred; then ninety years passed without any disturbance.

Of these eruptions, little beyond the bare fact is known. But from the time of the last one referred to, 1139, scientific men have carefully watched each outbreak. In 1198, the neighboring crater of Solfatara Lake was in eruption; in 1302, Ischia, dormant over fourteen hundred years, exhibited wonderful activity. For more than a year earthquakes shook the island, and at length there burst forth a lava stream from the southeast side of the mountain, flowing two miles, to the sea. Many houses were destroyed during the two months’ eruption; and not a few of the inhabitants abandoned the island. But Vesuvius was quiet till 1306. Again it broke forth in 1500. During this time Ætna was in a state of unwonted activity.

The eruption of 1538 broke forth at the foot of the mountain, and was marked by some peculiar features. The plain between Avernus, Monte Barbaro, and the sea, was first raised a little, and many cracks made in it, from some of which water issued. The sea retreated about two hundred paces, leaving many fish on the sands at the disposal of the people of Pozzuoli, a little watering place on the Bay of Baiæ. On the evening of September 29, numerous shocks of earthquake occurred, and about two o’clock in the night an immense fissure opened near the lake and extended toward the town. Smoke, fire, stones, and mud made of ashes, were vomited furiously, the whole process being attended by a terrible roaring, as of continual loudest thunder. Stones and masses of pumice larger than an ox were thrown out. The gulf in the town widened, and not a few houses were broken to pieces, or swallowed up in the chasm.

The large stones were thrown about as high as a crossbow would carry, and then fell, sometimes into the lake, sometimes into the chasm again; but mostly upon either side of it. The mud was ash-colored, very liquid at first but rapidly thickening; and within thirty-six hours the site of Pozzuoli was covered by a volcanic cone. A contemporary chronicler, present at the time, says this cone was one thousand paces in height; by which he probably meant slant height. The cone at present is four hundred and forty feet above the Bay of Naples. Two days later it again began to cast forth stones and ashes; and again on the seventh day. Several persons who had ascended the hill were killed in this sudden outbreak by falling stones, or smothered by the sulphurous vapors. This “Monte Nuovo” or New Mountain, is a mile and a half in circumference at the base, and four hundred and twenty-one feet deep. It is apparent, then, that its bottom is nineteen feet above the sea level. The Lucrine Lake was almost filled up. Only a shallow pool remains.

Falconi writes that from Naples the flames were seen, bursting forth in the night, between the hot-baths and Tripergola. The next morning might be seen the poor people flying in terror, begrimed with the black and muddy shower, which continued throughout the day. Flying from death, death was painted in their countenances. Some bore their children in their arms; some carried sacks full of goods; some led donkeys loaded with valuables, or such as were unable to walk.

The few eruptions after 1039 had been feeble. We find the mountain coming to be regarded as extinct as a volcanic crater. Nearly five centuries passed. Bracini, who visited it in 1631, writes that “the crater was about five miles in circumference, and above a thousand feet deep; its sides were covered with brushwood, and at the bottom was a plain on which cattle grazed. In the woody parts wild boars frequently harbored. In one part of the plain, covered with ashes, were three small pools; one filled with hot and bitter water, another salter than the sea, and a third hot but tasteless.” Such was the general character of the crater in A. D., 78, save that it was not so deep.

In December, 1631, with a sudden, tremendous roar, the mountain flamed into action. This outbreak has never been surpassed in fury and destructiveness by any eruption of Vesuvius, unless we except the one which destroyed Pompeii. The fatalities between the two eruptions had been few, the most of the mischief being damage to property. One of the eruptions failed to throw out any marked amount of matter of any sort.

But in 1631 the woods and pastures, vines, and fields within the crater, were annihilated. Explosion followed explosion in swift succession. The great crater was filled with molten rock. Stream after stream poured swiftly forth, till seven rivers of fire were desolating the land. Crops were fired by the cinder showers. Millions of tons of ashes were scattered over the land. The mountain slope was dotted with ruined villages. Resina, a populous little town on the site of Herculaneum was completely destroyed. Storms of wind and rain swept the mountain, and the huge rivers of mud buried whatever had escaped the lava and ashes. The crater itself was shattered and nearly destroyed. Hundreds of cattle were destroyed by the fiery storm. Not less than eighteen hundred people perished in this great convulsion. Thirty-five years later another outbreak occurred; and since then the mountain has been in constant activity.

The next unusual activity of especial note occurred in 1737. Breislak has estimated the outflow of lava at

10,237,096 cubic meters; enough to cover a square mile twelve and a half feet in depth. Immense quantities of white ashes were thrown out, and the entire mountain was filled with rents and fissures, from which poured volumes of noxious vapors that suffocated man and beast. The quantity of ashes thrown out doubtless exceeded the volume of lava. In 1766 occurred another unusual convulsion, the mountain continuing vigorously active from March till December, vomiting lava streams and huge volcanic “bombs.” These last are masses of lava enclosing a bubble of gas, which is set free by the breaking of the bomb as it falls. In 1779 the lava streams for a time threatened Naples itself.

Sir William Hamilton, long time English ambassador in Italy, has left a careful record of the eruption of 1793-94. Passing by such features as, common to all its eruptions, we have noted elsewhere, we may note the more striking particulars: Millions of heated stones were thrown high in the air, and fell in beautiful curves about the cone. It might be likened to the bursting stars of our pyrotechnic displays. Nearly half Vesuvius was covered with fire. “Huge masses of white smoke were vomited forth by the disturbed mountain, and formed themselves at a height of many thousands of feet above the crater into a huge, ever-moving canopy, through which, from time to time, were hurled pitch-black jets of volcanic dust, and dense vapors, mixed with cascades of red-hot rocks and scoriæ. The rain from the cloud canopy was scalding hot.”

“As the lava rushed forth from its imprisonment it streamed a liquid, white and brilliantly pure river, which burned for itself a smooth channel through a great arched chasm in the side of the mountain. It flowed with the clearness of honey in regular channels, cut finer than art can imitate and glowing with all the splendor of the sun.” Various were the effects of stones thrown in. “Light bodies of five, ten or fifteen pounds weight, made no impression; but bodies of sixty, seventy and eighty pounds were seen to form a kind of bed on the surface of the lava and float away with it. A stone of three hundred weight that had been thrown out by the crater, lay near the source of the current of lava. I raised it up on one end and then let it fall in upon the liquid lava, when it gradually sank beneath the surface and disappeared. If I wished to describe the manner in which it acted upon the lava, I should say that it was like a loaf of bread thrown into a bowl of very thick honey, which gradually involves itself in the heavy liquid and then slowly sinks to the bottom.”

As it flowed down the mountain the brilliant whiteness disappeared. Then it began to wrinkle, where flowing slowly, like the cream on a pan of milk when poured off. Crusts formed, which were speedily cracked to pieces, as the current underneath pressed on. On such crusts a person may cross the stream, if not particular as to singeing his boots. Being cooled when near the bottom, yet forced on by the pressure behind, the whole mass “resembled nothing so much as a heap of unconnected cinders from an iron foundry, rolling slowly along and falling with a rattling noise over one another.”

This eruption continued from February, 1793, to July, 1794. Rocks were hurled two thousand feet into the air. The lava flowed from fifteen different sources, and pouring in one stream from twelve to forty feet thick, flowed three hundred and eighty feet into the sea, requiring but six hours from the time of the outbreak to reach the shore. The sea boiled for one hundred yards around. The town of Torre del Greco was destroyed, and a number of persons were killed. The natives insisted, when the paroxysm was over, on rebuilding on the old site. The Neapolitans have a jest concerning their own exemption from the calamities which Torre has endured: “Naples sins and Torre is punished.” The lava of this discharge is estimated at about twenty-one million cubic metres.

Several eruptions of Vesuvius have occurred during the present century. Of these, the most notable are those of 1822 and 1872. They have given us exact information upon a point where formerly there was only conjecture, viz: the height which the material thrown out may reach.

In 1822, the ashes for twelve days fell in a continuous shower. The lava which had boiled up and hardened till the appearance of a depressed crater was lost was blown away. An immense abyss was formed, three-fourths of a mile in length and two thousand feet deep. The entire top of the cone was then blown away. Masses of lava weighing many tons were hurled two or three miles. Darkness prevailed in broad day, as far away as Amalfi, where the ashes fell to the depth of several inches. The dense column of ashes and vapor was thrown ten thousand feet above the level of the sea. In no known eruption has the electrical display been so brilliant and continuous. The roll of thunder could be clearly distinguished from the rumble of the volcano.

In recent years an observatory has been erected on the mountain, and all its phenomena carefully noted. During the eruption of 1872 instantaneous photography was pressed into service. A comparison of the whole view with the height of the mountain, showed that the vapors and fragments were thrown twenty thousand feet into the air—nearly four miles. This outburst began on April 24, and reached its climax in two days. The entire mountain filled with fissures and cracks—in the words of Prof. Palmieri, “sweated fire.” Enormous volumes of steam poured from the crater, with such a prodigious roar, that the terrified Neapolitans rushed from their houses, and spent the night in the open air. The lava floods rushed down the mountain side; and one of them destroyed two villages, besides many country houses adjacent. The whole region for several days quivered with shocks of earthquake.

Such have been the more important eruptions of Vesuvius. Its position, by an ancient and populous city, has made it the most celebrated of volcanoes. There seems no doubt that it is supplied from the same source which feeds the others in the neighborhood, as well as Mt. Ætna. When Vesuvius is quiet, Ætna is active, and vice versa. Close observation has established a well-defined daily periodicity: so that the most favorable period for visiting the crater may always be known beforehand.

In fine, about sixty eruptions of Vesuvius are on record. Of these, twenty-three were during the last century, and twenty-five during this. The activity of the entire region seems on the increase.

CHAPTER XXII.

OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS.

In short, the region is one in which, at some time, volcanic action occurred. It lies between two great volcanic

centers: Sinai, and the volcanic region of Arabia and Syria. The question really is, whether any disturbance occurred there at so late a period as the destruction of Sodom.

The idea advanced by several thoughtful men is, that in the bituminous plain occupied by the cities, fissures opened and flames and cinders issuing, rained upon the inflammable surface, speedily destroying the cities, which sunk with the earth till the sea covered them. Such cases, minus the bitumen, have several times occurred. And, again, the sea might have existed before, and merely have been extended by the convulsion. Such is the substance of the theory.

Cases in support of it are not wanting. The city of Euphemia, in Calabria, was so swallowed up in 1638. Kircher, who was near at the time, tells how he and his companions, unable to keep their feet, during the violent earthquake, lay upon the ground till the paroxysms were somewhat abated. Rising and looking for Euphemia, only a frightful black cloud was seen. It slowly cleared away revealing a loathsome and putrid lake. No trace of the city or its inhabitants was ever found.

In the island of Trinidad is a vast lake of pitch, of which the Indian legend tells the origin. The words are Kingsley’s:

The spirit proceeded to remind the Chaymas of all the good things he had provided for them; how he had allowed them unlimited use of all things which could be of any possible good to them; how he had even been patient with their thanklessness. Only the colibris or humming-birds, useless to the Chaymas, he had reserved for himself, that he might have pleasure in their beauty and happiness. The story continues:

The salient points of the evidence being presented, the reader may draw his own conclusions. Perhaps the cities were fired in the manner suggested—perhaps lightning ignited the bitumen. But it is generally supposed that their site lies beneath the sea.

After the account given of Vesuvius, the reader will no doubt be surprised to learn that this noted mountain can not rank as more than a respectable fourth-rate volcano. It will require but a brief comparison with others to show that such is the case.

By far the largest volcano in Europe, and next to Vesuvius, the most noted, is Mt. Etna, in the island of Sicily. It was well known to the ancients, and appears to have been in eruption from the most remote historic times. Diodorus Siculus records that a violent eruption caused an adjacent district to be deserted by its inhabitants before the Trojan war. Thucydides tells of three eruptions between the colonization of Sicily by the Greeks and the Peloponnesian war—431 B. C.

Notwithstanding the great antiquity of the records of this mountain, but little detail is known of its earlier eruptions. The first of which any extended account exists is the great outbreak of 1669. The convulsion began with a tremendous earthquake. Many villages and towns in the adjacent districts were leveled to the earth. In the plain of St. Lio, a fissure six feet wide and twelve miles long and of unknown depth opened from north to south with a terrific, crashing noise, and extended nearly to the top of the mountain. Flashes of intense light poured from it. Five other parallel fissures afterwards opened, one after the other, emitting smoke, and the most horrid bellowings, which were heard to the distance of forty miles.

This explains the manner in which dykes or banks of lava are thrown up amid other rocks. The light emitted by these fissures would indicate that they were, to a certain height, filled with glowing lava.

The lava, during this eruption, having overwhelmed and destroyed fourteen towns, some of them containing three or four thousand inhabitants, at length arrived at the walls of Catania, a populous city, situated ten miles from the volcano. These walls had been raised sixty feet high, towards the mountain, in order to protect the city, in case of an eruption. But the burning flood accumulated against the wall, so as to fill all the space around and below that part, and finally poured over it in a fiery cataract, destroying every thing in that vicinity.

From Catania the lava continued its course until it reached the sea, a distance of fifteen miles from its source, in a current about eighteen hundred feet broad, and forty feet deep. While moving on, its surface was, in general, a mass of solid rock, or cooled lava, and it advanced by the protrusion of the melted matter, through this hardened crust.

As an illustration of the intense heat of volcanic matter, the Canon Recupero relates that in 1766 he ascended a small hill composed of ancient volcanic matter, in order to observe the slow and gradual manner in which a current of liquid fire advanced from Ætna. This current was two and a half miles broad; and, while he stood observing it, two small threads of lava, issuing from a crevice, detached themselves from the main stream, and approached rapidly towards the eminence where he and his guide were standing. They had only just time to escape, when they saw the hill on which they stood a few minutes before, and which was fifty feet high, entirely surrounded, and, in about fifteen minutes, entirely melted down into the burning mass, so as to be incorporated with, and move on along with it.

According to Hitchcock, 77,000 persons perished during the eruption of 1769, and eighty-four square miles were covered with lava.

The slowness with which lava cools may be inferred that ten years later, workmen endeavoring to sink a shaft through the bed were forced to abandon the work when near the bottom, by reason of the heat.

While this was Ætna’s greatest outbreak, several of terrible destructiveness have occurred since. In 1693 an eruption was accompanied by earthquake shocks, which in three days did more damage than the lava. Catania was almost destroyed; great sea-waves rolled in upon the

wreck; the vessels in the harbor were dashed against each other or upon the beach: the ringing of the bells and the roar of the mountain and sea was mingled with the cries of thousands of unfortunates struggling in the ruins. Not less than 16,000 people perished in Catania alone.

In 1755 occurred an eruption which is memorable for the great flood which attended it. Immense quantities of snow and ice, accumulated about the summit, were melted by the intense heat, and the waters rushed down in a column thirty feet deep and one and three-quarters miles wide, into the plain below. The lower portion of the valley was filled with the debris. Those who were not buried in the rubbish were swept out to sea. The total loss of life is not exactly known, but amounted to many thousands.

Second in volume to the eruption of 1669, but very slightly destructive, is the eruption of 1852-53. It began August 20, 1852, and continued nine months. “The united width of the lava streams was two miles, with a depth of from eight to sixteen feet, piled up in some places to one hundred feet. It reached to near Zarafana,—almost six miles, descending thirty-five hundred feet in sixteen days. The Val del Bove, from the upper part of which it proceeded, looked like a sea of fire. Explosions as of artillery were frequently heard, and the scoriæ were sent up to great heights.” The intense heat set fire to the trees in the vicinity.

In January, 1865, a considerable eruption took place from an immense fissure on the northeastern slope of the mountain. Seven active craters developed along the fissure, sending out a lava stream one and one-half miles wide.

Three other eruptions have taken place from Ætna since 1853; but, save some damage to property, these have been comparatively unimportant, save from a geological standpoint. One began in 1874 from a fissure on the north side, but suddenly ceased. Prof. Silvestri, after examining the locality, asserted that the next eruption would take place from this same fissure. Five years later his assertion was verified, large streams of lava being sent out, with heavy showers of ashes and sand. Large areas of forest were destroyed, and the stream drew alarmingly near some populous villages, but stopped not far from a small river. The area of the lava bed was about seven hundred and fifty acres, the volume being about twenty-three and a half million tons.

Ætna’s last eruption was in May, 1886; a few houses were destroyed, but no lives were lost. Ætna and the adjacent Lipari Islands exhibited unusual activity during the entire seventeenth century, having a total of fourteen eruptions; as many as are recorded in all their previous history. The next century witnessed fifteen outbursts from Ætna, and during the present one there have been eleven.

It will be noticed that both Vesuvius and Ætna seem to have reached their maximum activity at the close of the last century. The same is true of the volcanoes of Iceland. This island, which is as large as Ireland, is built up entirely of volcanic matter. It doubtless began with a single, great submarine volcano; but to-day it has at least thirteen active vents. It presents us with the most tremendous outpour of matter in the history of the world. For seven hundred years there has not been an interval of forty, and seldom of more than twenty, without eruptions and earthquakes in some portion of the island. Single eruptions of Mt. Hecla have lasted six years. Often during violent earthquakes, old mountains have disappeared; new ones have been raised up; rivers turned from their courses, or dried up altogether. The old Norseman who discovered the island might much more appropriately have named it Fireland. Doubtless had his ancestors known the island they would have chosen it as the home of the terrible fire giants.

But Iceland is the realm of both frost and fire; and there is no more romantic or painful chapter in history than the story of this hardy and spirited race to maintain their foothold in the face of such terrible odds. Those who hold that a nation’s progress and stamina are in proportion to its material advantages, would have to make an exception in favor of blood. The plucky Norsemen have held their own in this region for nine centuries; nor is there any deterioration. No nation can to-day show a better intellectual or moral condition than these poor but hardy islanders. Yet there is not a region of the world that has been more frequently or terribly scourged than this semibarren island.

The best known volcano in Iceland is Mt. Hecla, which ranks with Ætna and Vesuvius in fame. It is not the highest nor most remarkable of Icelandic volcanoes; but the frequency of its eruptions, together with the fact that it may be easily reached, have brought it to the front. It is five thousand feet high, and lies but thirty-five miles from the sea. The larger portion of the material thrown out by it consists of slag, cinders, pumice, and ashes, the slope of its cone being about 35 degrees. It has nothing answering to the customary crater; the eruptions break from fissures in its sides; and, in consequence, it may emit several streams or showers at once.

Hecla has been in eruption about thirty times since its character was first known, and has at times made fearful havoc. Its last great outbreak was in 1878.

Hecla has adjutants in this volcanic field that are more savage and relentless than the generalissimo. One of the most destructive outbursts of recent times occurred in the Vatna district in 1875. In this region, about sixty

miles by one hundred and fifteen, is a very nest of volcanoes. The convulsion lasted several months, the entire region being active; and great numbers of people perished. So great was the destruction of property, crops, and flocks that the people, reduced to starvation, were compelled to appeal to Britain and Denmark for assistance. This has happened more than once in Iceland’s history.

But far up in the impenetrable deserts of the interior is a mountain which has seldom shown any activity; but when in full blast, its power is unsurpassed by any volcano on the globe. This is the fearful Skaptar Jokul, or Skaptar mountain. A single instance of its power will suffice.

One of the most stupendous outbreaks recorded in history is that of Skaptar Jokul in 1783. In the quantity of lava ejected, it is hardly surpassed by any single eruption; and few disturbances of the sort have surpassed it in fatality. Immense volumes of ashes were hurled into the air, spreading over the whole island in dense clouds. Streams were poisoned by the minerals and alkalies thrown out. Immense numbers of sheep and cattle perished. Thousands of acres of pasture lands were ruined. Where the grass was not killed, it often was rendered poisonous, like the water, by the mineral dust falling upon it. The hills were dotted with the decaying carcasses. The air was filled with horrible stench. The ashes fell in such volumes into the ocean that the fish deserted the coast. The flying clouds of dust spread to Europe. The appalling horror of the scene can hardly be imagined. Death stalked abroad in his most repulsive form.

“The river Skapta, a considerable stream, was for a time completely dried by a torrent of liquid fire. This river was about two hundred feet broad, and its banks from four to six hundred above the level of the water. This defile was entirely filled for a considerable distance by the lava, which crossed the river by the dam thus formed, and overflowed the country beyond, where it filled a lake of considerable extent, and great depth.

“This eruption commenced on the 11th of June. On the 18th of the same month, a still greater quantity of lava rushed from the mouth of the volcano, and flowed with amazing rapidity, sometimes over the first stream, but generally in a new course. The melted matter having crossed some of the tributary streams of the Skapta, completely dammed up their waters and caused great destruction of property and lives by their overflow. The lava, after flowing for several days, was precipitated down a tremendous cataract, called Stapafoss, where it filled a profound abyss, which that great water-fall had been excavating for ages, and thence the fiery flood continued its course.

“On the 3rd of August, a new eruption poured forth fresh floods of lava, which, taking a different direction from the others, filled the bed of another river, by which a large lake was formed, and much property and many lives destroyed.

“The effect of this dreadful calamity may in some measure be imagined when it is known that, although Iceland did not at that time contain more than fifty thousand inhabitants, there perished nine thousand human beings by this single eruption, making nearly one in five of the whole population. Part of them were destroyed by the burning lava itself; some by drowning, other by noxious vapors which the lava emitted, and others in consequence of the famine, caused by the showers of ashes, which covered a great proportion of the island and destroyed most of the vegetation. The fish, also, on which the inhabitants depended, in a great measure, for food, entirely deserted the coast.”

The quantity of lava which Skaptar Jokul emitted during this eruption was almost beyond belief. The two principal branches were respectively forty and fifty miles long. The branch which crossed the Skapta was from twelve to fifteen miles wide; the width of the other was seven miles. The usual depth was one hundred feet; but two and three hundred were frequent; and where the streams dashed across gorges or narrow valleys the depth was six or seven hundred. It would be quite safe to estimate the average depth at one hundred and fifty feet. These two principal streams were, then, sufficient to cover one thousand square miles to a depth of one hundred and fifty feet. Contrast with this the twenty million cubic meters estimated to have been poured forth in one of the great Vesuvian eruptions. This last would cover one square mile to a depth of twenty-five feet. Vesuvius sinks to an insignificance that is pitiable; its great outbreak produced but one-six thousandths as much as the single eruption of Skaptar Jokul! Such calculations may give us a comparative estimate of the two; but no figures can give us any conception of the force required to elevate such a stream of melted rock through the crust of the earth. And if we compare the resultant fatality, it is clear that this great convulsion, in a very sparsely settled island, destroyed more lives than all the outbursts of Vesuvius in its densely populated neighborhood.

This eruption of Skaptar was preceded by several outbreaks in the sea; some of them close to the shore; some many miles from land. Such phenomena have become tolerably familiar. Livy informs us that a disturbance of this kind near Sicily, occurring with similar phenomena at the time of Hannibal’s death, so terrified the Romans as to induce them to proclaim a day of supplication to the gods to avert their displeasure. Santorin in the Grecian Archipelago is a similar production. And in 1831 an island was thrown up to the southwest of Sicily, where previous soundings had shown a depth of six hundred feet. It was preceded by a violent spouting of steam and water. The sea around was filled with floating pumice and dead fish. The crater reached a height of two hundred feet, being three miles in circumference. Its circular basin was full of boiling, dingy, red water. It continued active three weeks, and then slowly sank, leaving a dangerous reef eleven feet below the surface; while a single black volcanic rock projected from the sea near the center of the reef. It is known as Graham’s Island. Thus we see that volcanic action is not confined to the land, and that the areas affected are continually shifting.

Jorullo, in Mexico, affords an example of the way in which new volcanoes are constantly being formed. In the parallel of the City of Mexico exist five volcanoes, extending in a line across the country as if thrown up along some immense fissure or subterranean fault, extending from sea to sea. Of these Popocatepetl is perhaps the largest, and Jorullo the most recent.

There formerly existed in Mexico an extensive plain of remarkable fertility, covered with fields of cane, cotton and indigo, and watered by irrigation from the reservoirs in the basaltic mountains that bounded it. This region, the Malpays, had no volcano within eighty miles, and lay twenty-six hundred feet above the sea. In June, 1759, alarming rumblings were heard in the earth, which were succeeded by severe earthquakes. These phenomena lasted several weeks, to the great consternation of the inhabitants. In September it seemed that quiet was restored, when suddenly, on the night of the 28th, a fearful subterranean noise was again heard; fissures opened, and hot stones were thrown out. Part of the plain rose up like