Six villages in the neighbourhood of Aci Reale bear the name of Aci: Aci Castello, Aci Sant' Antonio, and so on, but Aci Reale claims to stand upon the very site rendered memorable by the story of Acis and Galatea. The river Acis (now called _Acque Grande_) rises from a bed of lava, and falls into the sea a mile from its source. Aci Reale stands on seven different beds of superposed lava, having layers of earth resulting from decomposed lava between. The Canon Recupero calculated from observation, that a lava requires at least 2000 years to form even a scanty layer of earth, consequently he inferred that the lowest of the lava streams upon which Aci rests must have been formed 14,000 years ago. These views he stated to Brydone a hundred years ago; the latter says, "Recupero tells me he is exceedingly embarrassed by these discoveries in writing the history of the mountain. That Moses hangs like a dead weight upon 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; not to presume to urge anything that may, in the smallest degree, be deemed contradictory to his sacred authority." The Canon Recupero lost his church preferment on the publication of Brydone's book, and the whole body of clergy of Girgenti received a reprimand on account of a capital story which Brydone told of a dinner at which the Bishop presided, during which several of the reverend Canons suffered severely from the effects of English punch, which Brydone had brewed for them. We quite agree with Admiral Smyth when he says, "It is a pity that Mr. Brydone laboured under such a cacoethes, as to sacrifice a friend for the sake of a good story." Of course we now know that Recupero's estimate of the age of Etna was far within the true limits, but we derive this information from other sources. No true estimate can be obtained from the observation of the decomposition of lavas, for it has been often observed that two lavas will decompose at very different rates. A little to the north of the village of La Scaletta, at the base of the rocks upon which Aci Reale stands, there are two small caverns in the abrupt face of the basalt, which can only be approached in a boat. They consist of columnar basalt bent very curiously, and capped by amorphous basalt.