New Maps of Etna.—After these pages had received their final revision in type, I met with two new maps of Etna in the Paris Exhibition. The literature of our subject will obviously be incomplete without some notice of them, although this belongs properly to the first chapter rather than to the last. The one is a map in relief constructed by Captain Francesco Pistoja for the Istituto Topografico Militare of Florence. The vertical scale is 1/25,000 and the horizontal is 1/50,000. The surface is coloured geologically: the lavas erupted during each century being differently coloured, while the course of each stream is traced. This map, although by no means free from errors, is a vast improvement on the relief map of M. Elie de Beaumont. One defect, which might be easily remedied, is due to the fact that the lavas of three consecutive centuries are coloured so much alike, that it is almost impossible to distinguish them. The minor cones are well shown, the Val del Bove fairly well, and the map is altogether a valuable addition to our knowledge of the mountain.
The other map is a Carta Agronomica dell' Etna, showing the surface cultivation. Different colours denote different plants, pistachio nuts, vines, olives, chestnuts, etc. It is beautifully drawn and coloured by hand, and is the work of Signor L. Ardini, of Catania.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] The figures in this plate are magnified 35 diameters. Fig. 1. Lava of b.c. 396. The upper half of the drawing is occupied by a crystal of plagioclastic felspar showing twin lamellation and faint zonal markings, and with numerous irregular dark-brown inclosures of glass, probably containing magnetite dust and matter similar to that of the groundmass of the rock which consists of felspar microliths, granules of olivine, and augite crystals, grains of magnetite, and apparently a little interstitial glass. A crystal of augite is shown near the bottom of the drawing.
Fig. 2. Lava of a.d. 1689. On the right hand side part of a plagioclase crystal with inclosures similar to that in the preceding figure. In the centre a small crystal of plagioclase. Groundmass similar to that of Fig. 1, but showing a somewhat definite arrangement of the small felspar crystals, indicative of fluxion.
[23] "Mikroskopische Beschaffenheit der Mineralien und Gesteine." Leipzig, 1873; p. 480.
[24] "Mikroskopische Physiographie der Massigen Gesteine. Stuttgart, 1877; p. 547.