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 god,
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 pass 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 asserts 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 ambassador 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 assigned. It must be borne in mind