erflowed by this great eruption was Mompilieri.
Thirty-five years afterward, in 1704, an excavation was made on the site
of the principal church of this place, and at the depth of thirty-five
feet the workmen came upon the gate, which was adorned with three
statues. From under an arch which had been formed by the lava, one
of these statues, with a bell and some coins, were extracted in good
preservation. This fact is remarkable; for in a subsequent eruption,
which happened in 1766, a hill about fifty feet in height, being
surrounded on either side by two streams of lava, was in a quarter of
an hour swept along by the current. The latter event may be explained by
supposing that the hill in question was cavernous in its structure,
and that the lava, penetrating into the cavities, forced asunder their
walls, and so detached the superincumbent mass from its supports.

It is not by its streams of fire alone that Etna ravages the valleys and
plains at its base. It sometimes also deluges them with great floods of
water. On the 2d of March, 1755, two streams of lava, issuing from the
highest crater, were at once precipitated on an enormous mass of very
deep snow, which then clothed the summit. These fiery currents ran
through the snow to a distance of three miles, melting it as they
flowed. The consequence was, that a tremendous torrent of water rushed
down the sides of the mountain, carrying with it vast quantities of
sand, volcanic cinders and blocks of lava, with which it overspread the
flanks of the mountain and the plains beneath, which it devastated in
its course.

The volume of water was estimated at 16,000,000 cubic feet, it forming
a channel two miles broad and in some places thirty-four feet deep,
and flowing at the rate of two-thirds of a mile in a minute. All the
winter's snow on the mountain could not have yielded such a flood,
and Lyell considered that it melted older layers of ice which had been
preserved under a covering of volcanic dust.

ETNA IN 1819

Another great eruption took place in 1819, which presented some
peculiarities. Near the point whence the highest stream of lava
issued in 1811, there were opened three large mouths, which, with loud
explosions, threw up hot cinders and sand, illuminated by a strong glare
from beneath. Shortly afterwards there was opened, a little lower down,
another mouth, from which a similar eruption took place; and still
farther down there soon appeared a fifth, whence