f Sicily, 10,840 ft.
high; a striking feature is the immense ravine, the Val del Bove,
splitting the eastern side of the mountain, and about 5 m. in diameter;
on the flanks are many smaller cones. Etna is celebrated for its many and
destructive eruptions; was active in 1892; its observatory, built in
1880, at an elevation of 9075 ft. above sea-level, is the highest
inhabited dwelling in Europe.

ETON, a town in Buckinghamshire, on the Thames, 22 m. SW. of London;
celebrated for its public school, Eton College, founded in 1440 by Henry
VI., which has now upwards of 1000 scholars.

ETRE SUPREME, the Supreme Being agreeably to the hollow and vacant
conception of the boasted, beggarly 18th-century Enlightenment of
Revolutionary France.

ETRURIA, the ancient Roman name of a region in Italy, W. of the
Apennines from the Tiber to the Macra in the N.; inhabited by the
Etruscans, a primitive people of Italy; at one time united in a
confederation of twelve States; gradually absorbed by the growing Roman
power, and who were famous for their artistic work in iron and bronze.
Many of the Etruscan cities contain interesting remains of their early
civilised state; but their entire literature, supposed to have been
extensive, has perished, and their language is only known through
monumental inscriptions. Their religion was polytheistic, but embraced a
belief in a future life. There is abundant evidence that they had
attained to a high degree of civilisation; the status of women was high,
the wife ranking with the husband; their buildings still extant attest
their skill as engineers and builders; vases, mirrors, and coins of fine
workmanship have been found in their tombs, and jewellery which is
scarcely rivalled; while the tombs themselves are remarkable for their
furnishings of chairs, ornaments, decorations, &c., showing that they
regarded these sanctuaries more as dwellings of departed spirits than as
sepulchres of the dead.

ETTMUeLLER, ERNST MORITZ LUDWIG, a German philologist, born at
Gerfsdorf, Saxony, professor of German literature in Zurich in 1863; did
notable work in connection with Anglo-Saxon and in Middle German dialects
(1802-1877).

ETTRICK, a Scottish river that rises in Selkirkshire and joins the
Tweed, 3 m. below Selkirk; the Yarrow is its chief tributary; a forest of
the same name once spread over all Selkirkshire and into the adjoining
counties; the district is associated with some of the finest bal