The geographical position of Etna was first accurately determined by Captain Smyth in 1814. He estimated the latitude of the highest point of the bifid peak of the great crater at 37° 43' 31" N.; and the longitude at 15° East of Greenwich. Elie de Beaumont repeated the observations in 1834 with nearly the same result; and these determinations have been very generally adopted. In the new Italian map recently constructed by the Stato Maggiore, the latitude of the centre of the crater is stated to be 37° 44' 55" N., and the longitude 44' 55" E. of the meridian of Naples, which passes through the Observatory of Capo di Monte. According to Bochart the name of Etna is derived from the Phoenician _athana_--a furnace; others derive it from ~aithô~--to burn. Professor Benfey of Gottingen, a great authority on the subject, considers that the word was created by one of the early Indo-Germanic races. He identifies the root _ait_ with the Greek ~aith~ and the Latin _aed_--to burn, as in _aes_-tu. The Greek name ~Aitna~ was known to Hesiod. The more modern name, _Mongibello_, by which the mountain is still commonly known to the Sicilians, is a combination of the Arabic _Gibel_, and the Italian _Monte_. During the Saracenic occupation of Sicily, Etna was called _Gibel Uttamat_--the mountain of fire; and the last syllables of Mongibello are a relic of the Saracenic name. A mountain near Palermo is still called Gibel Rosso--the red mountain; and names may not unfrequently be found in the immediate neighbourhood of Etna which are partly, or sometimes even entirely, composed of Arabic words; such, for example, as _Alcantara_--the river of _the bridge_. Etna is also often spoken of distinctively as _Il Monte_--the mountain _par excellence_; a name which, in its capacity of the largest mountain in the kingdom of Italy, and the loftiest volcano in Europe, it fully justifies. Etna is frequently alluded to by classical writers. By the poets it was sometimes feigned to be the prison of the giant Enceladus or Typhon, sometimes the forge of Hephaistos, and the abode of the Cyclops. It is strange that Homer, who has so minutely described certain portions of the contiguous Sicilian coast, does not allude to Etna. This has been thought by some to be a proof that the mountain was in a quiescent state during the period which preceded and coincided with the time of Homer. Pindar (B.C. 522-442) is the first writer of antiquity who has described Etna. In the first of the Pythian Odes for Hieron, of the town of Aitna, winner in the chariot race in B.C. 474, he exclaims: