anks of
Etna, sloping with a gentle inclination, envelop in succession a great
multitude of minor volcanoes, while new ones spring up from time to
time.

_Early eruptions of Etna._--Etna appears to have been in activity from
the earliest times of tradition; for Diodorus Siculus mentions an
eruption which caused a district to be deserted by the Sicani before the
Trojan war. Thucydides informs us, that in the sixth year of the
Peloponnesian war, or in the spring of the year 425 B. C., a lava stream
ravaged the environs of Catania, and this he says was the third eruption
which had happened in Sicily since the colonization of that island by
the Greeks.[561] The second of the three eruptions alluded to by the
historian took place in the year 475 B. C., and was that so poetically
described by Pindar, two years afterwards, in his first Pythian ode:--

[Greek: kion
D' ourania synechei
Niphoess' Aitna, panetes
Chionos oxeias tithena.]

In these and the seven verses which follow, a graphic description is
given of Etna, such as it appeared five centuries before the Christian
era, and such as it has been seen when in eruption in modern times. The
poet is only making a passing allusion to the Sicilian volcano, as the
mountain under which Typhoeus lay buried, yet by a few touches of his
master-hand every striking feature of the scene has been faithfully
portrayed. We are told of "the snowy Etna, the pillar of heaven--the
nurse of everlasting frost, in whose deep caverns lie concealed the
fountains of unapproachable fire--a stream of eddying smoke by day--a
bright and ruddy flame by night; and burning rocks rolled down with loud
uproar into the sea."

[Illustration: Fig. 46.

Minor cones on the flanks of Etna.

1. Monti Rossi, near Nicolosi, formed in 1669. 2. Vampeluso?[562]]

_Eruption of 1669--Monti Rossi formed._--The great eruption which
happened in the year 1669 is the first which claims particular
attention. An earthquake had levelled to the ground all the houses in
Nicolosi, a town situated near the lower margin of the woody region,
about twenty miles from the summit of Etna, and ten from the sea at
Catania. Two gulfs then opened near that town, from whence sand and
scoriae were thrown up in such quantity, that in the course of three or
four months a double cone was formed, called Monti Rossi, about 450 feet
high. But the most extraordinary phenomenon occurred at the commencement
of the convulsio