of Catania, to furnish the first
history of Etna and of its eruptions, which had any just claim to
completeness. It is entitled, _Descrizione dell' Etna, con la Storia
delle Eruzioni e il Catalogo del prodotti_. The first edition appeared
in 1793, and a second was printed in Palermo in 1818. The author had an
enthusiastic love for his subject:--"Nato sopra l'Etna," he writes, "che
io conobbi ben presto palmo a palmo la mia passione per lo studio fisso
la mia attenzione sul bello, e terribile fenomeno che avea avanti agli
occhi." The work commences with a general description of the
mountain--its height, the temperature of the different regions, the view
from the summit, the mass, the water-springs, the vegetable and animal
life, and the internal fires. This extends over sixty-nine octavo pages.
The second part of the book--eighty pages--gives a history of the
eruptions from the earliest times to the year 1811; the third
part--sixty-seven pages--treats of the nature of the volcanic products;
and the fourth part--thirty-four pages--discusses certain geological and
physical considerations concerning the mountain. At the end there are a
few badly drawn and engraved woodcuts, and a map which, although the
trend of the coast-line is quite wrong, is otherwise fairly good. The
engravings represent the mountain as seen from Catania; the Isole dei
Ciclopi, and the neighbouring coast; the Montagna della Motta; and a
view from Catania of the eruption of 1787. This work has evidently to a
great extent been a labour of love; it is full of personal observations,
and also embodies the results of many other observers. It has furnished
the foundation of much that has since been written concerning Etna.

The Canon Recupero has been alluded to above; he accompanied Hamilton,
Brydone, and others to the summit of the mountain, and he was employed
by the Government to report on the flood which, in 1755, descended with
extraordinary violence through the Val del Bove. Beyond this, Recupero
does not appear to have published anything concerning Etna, although it
was well known that he had plenty of materials. He died in 1778, and it
was not till the year 1815 that his results were published under the
title of _Storia Naturale et Generale dell' Etna, del Canonico Giuseppe
Recupero.--Opera Postuma_. This work consists of two bulky quarto
volumes, the first of which is devoted to a general description of the
mountain, the second to a history of the er