lly
suspended in space at or beyond Palermo, and resting on a slightly misty
atmosphere; it gradually sank until it reached the surface of the
island, and as the sun rose it approached nearer and nearer to the base
of the mountain. In a short time the flood of light destroyed the first
effects of light and shadow. The mountains of Calabria and the west
coast of Italy appeared very close, and Stromboli and the Lipari Islands
almost under our feet; the east coast of Sicily could be traced until it
ended at Cape Passaro and turned to the west, forming the southern
boundary of the island, while to the west distant mountains appeared. No
one would have the hardihood to attempt to describe the various
impressions which rapidly float through the mind during the
contemplation of sunrise from the summit of Etna. Brydone, who is by no
means inclined to be rapturous or ecstatic in regard to the many
wonderful sights he saw in the course of his tour, calls this "the most
wonderful and most sublime sight in nature." "Here," he adds,
"description must ever fall short, for no imagination has dared to form
an idea of so glorious and so magnificent a scene. Neither is there on
the surface of this globe any one point that unites so many awful and
sublime objects. The immense elevation from the surface of the earth,
drawn as it were to a single point, without any neighbouring mountains
for the senses and imagination to rest upon, and recover from their
astonishment in their way down to the world. This point or pinnacle,
raised on the brink of a bottomless gulph, as old as the world, often
discharging rivers of fire and throwing out burning rocks with a noise
that shakes the whole island. Add to this, the unbounded extent of the
prospect, comprehending the greatest diversity and the most beautiful
scenery in nature, with the rising sun advancing in the east to
illuminate the scene."

When the sun had risen we had time to examine the crater, a vast abyss
nearly 1000 feet in depth, and with very precipitous sides. Its
dimensions vary, but it is now between two and three miles in
circumference. Sometimes it is nearly full of lava, at other times it
appears to be bottomless. At the present time it is like an inverted
cone; its sides are covered with incrustations of sulphur and ammonia
salts, and jets of steam perpetually issue from crevices. Near the
summit we found a deposit, several inches in thickness, of a white
substance, apparently lav