self. So that after
about 2000 years this lava had scarcely begun to be fertile. Afterwards
Recupero, who was a canonico, "an ingenious ecclesiastic of this place,"
told Brydone of a pit sunk near Jaci, where they had pierced through
seven parallel surfaces of lava, most of them covered with a thick bed of
rich earth.

Now, says he [Recupero], the eruption which formed the lowest of
these lavas, if we may be allowed to reason from analogy, must have
flowed from the mountain at least 14,000 years ago. Recupero tells
me, he is exceedingly embarrassed by these discoveries in writing the
history of the mountain.--That Moses hangs like a dead weight on him,
and blunts all his zeal for enquiry; for that really he has not the
conscience to make his mountain so young as that prophet makes the
world.--What do you think of these sentiments from a Roman Catholic
divine?--The bishop, who is strenuously orthodox--for it is an
excellent see--has already warned him to be upon his guard, and not
to pretend to be a better natural historian than Moses; nor to
presume to urge anything that may in the smallest degree be deemed
contradictory to his sacred authority. . . .

The lava, being a very porous substance, easily catches the dust that
is carried about by the wind; which, at first I observe, only yields
a kind of moss; this rotting, and by degrees increasing the soil,
some small meagre vegetables are next produced; which rotting in
their turn, are likewise converted into soil. But this process, I
suppose, is often greatly accelerated by showers of ashes from the
mountain, as I have observed in some places the richest soil, to the
depth of five or six feet and upwards; and still below that, nothing
but rocks of lava. It is in these spots that the trees arrive at
such an immense size. Their roots shoot into the crevices of the
lava, and lay such hold of it, that there is no instance of the winds
tearing them up; though there are many of its breaking off their
longest branches.

We passed several villages, and on one of the churches there was a group
of three saints--S. Alfio, the padrone of the district, and his two
brothers. I had never heard of S. Alfio, who they told me was a
physician and lived in the third century; one of his brothers, S.
Filiberto (whom the people call S. Liberto), was a surgeon, and his other
brother,