"Artificis naturæ ingens opus aspice, nulla
"Tu tanta humanis rebus spectacula cernes."
P. Cornelii Severi Ætna.
Naples, Oct. 17, 1769.
SIR,
Encouraged by the assurances you give me, in your last obliging letter of the 15th of June, that any new communication upon the subject of Volcano's would be received with satisfaction by the Royal Society; I venture to send you the following account of my late observations upon Mount Etna, which you are at liberty to lay before our respectable Society, should you think it worth its notice. [See [Plate IV.]]
After having examined with much attention the operations of Mount Vesuvius, during the five years that I have had the honour of residing as his Majesty's Minister at this Court, and after having carefully remarked the nature of the soil for fifteen miles round this capital; I am, in my own mind, well convinced that the whole of it has been formed by explosion. Many of the craters, from whence this matter has issued, are still visible; such as the Solfaterra near Puzzole, the lake of Agnano, and near this lake a mountain composed of burnt matter, that has a very large crater surrounded with a wall, to inclose the wild boars and deer, that are kept there for the diversion of his Sicilian Majesty; it is called Astruni: the Monte Nuovo, thrown up from the bottom of the Lucrine lake[17] in the year 1538, which has likewise its crater; and the lake of Averno. The islands of Nisida and Procida are entirely composed of burnt matter; the island of Ischia is likewise composed of lava, pumice, and burnt matter; and there are in that island several visible craters, from one of which, no longer ago than the year 1303, there issued a lava, which ran into the sea, and is still in the same barren state as the modern lavas of Vesuvius. After having, I say, been accustomed to these observations, I was well prepared to visit the most ancient, and perhaps the most considerable, Volcano that exists; and I had the satisfaction of being thoroughly convinced there, of the formation of very considerable mountains by meer explosion, having seen many such on the sides of Etna, as will be related hereafter.
On the 24th of June last, in the afternoon, I left Catania, a town situated at the foot of Mount Etna, or, as it is now called, Mon-Gibello, in company with Lord Fortrose and the Canonico Recupero, an ingenious priest of Catania, who is the only person there that is acquainted with the mountain: he is actually employed in writing its natural history; but, I fear, will not be able to compass so great and useful an undertaking, for want of proper encouragement.