which terminates there, when suddenly, in the beginning of September, the devastating stream stayed its march against the ill-fated district. On the contrary that which had taken the direction of Milo, reinforced by a new current on the 10th of September, destroyed the hamlet of Caselle del Milo; and afterwards divided itself into two branches, which left the village of Caselle in safety between them. The inhabitants of La Macchia and Giarre gave themselves up for lost; for it seemed that the lava would be obliged to follow the valley of Santa Maria della Strada; happily, however, from the 20th of September onward, it ceased to advance perceptibly. The eruption did not totally subside till March 1853; but the lava-flows did no more than travel by the side, or on the top of the older, without extending beyond them. The crater of 1852 was called the Centenario, from its having been formed at the time of the centenary of the fête of S. Agatha. Santiago, in the island of Cuba, was destroyed by an earthquake on the very day of the eruption. During the whole period of the eruption, only one explosion proceeded from the great crater of Etna. By it an enormous column of ashes and scoriæ was cast into the air. On the 9th of September white ashes were seen on the summit, which at a distance appeared like snow. When pressed together by the hand they took the consistence of clay, but they hardened in the fire, and could then be reduced to powder. They have been considered to be the _debris_ of felspathic rocks, disintegrated by the heat of the lava, and blown out by the expansive power of disengaged gas. The eruption of 1852 was one of the grandest of the recorded eruptions of Etna. More than 2,000,000,000 cubic feet of red hot lava was spread over three square miles. This eruption was minutely described by Carlo Gemellaro, in a memoir entitled, "_Breve ragguaglio della eruzione dell' Etna del 21 Agosto, 1852_." 77. In October 1864, frequent shocks of earthquakes were felt by the dwellers on Etna. In January clouds of smoke were emitted by the great crater, and roaring sounds were heard. On the night of the 30th a violent shock was felt on the north-east side of the mountain, and a mouth opened below Monte Frumento, from which lava was ejected. It flowed at a rate of about a mile a day, and ultimately divided into two streams. By March 10th the new mouths of fire had increased to seven in number, and they were all situated along a line stretching down from the summit. The three upper craters gave forth loud detonations three or four times a minute. Professor Orazio Silvestri has devoted a quarto of 267 pages to an account of _I Fenomeni Vulcanici presentati dall'Etna nel 1863-64-65-66_.