"For many days previous the sky had been overcast, and the weather, notwithstanding the season, oppressively hot. The thunder and lightning were incessant, and the eruption was at length ushered in by a violent shock of an earthquake, which leveled most of the houses at Nicolosi. Two great chasms then opened near that village, from whence ashes were thrown out in such quantities, that, in a few weeks, a double hill, called Monte Rosso, 450 feet high, was formed, and the surrounding country covered to such a depth, that, nothing but the tops of the trees could be seen. The lava ran in a stream fifty feet deep, and four miles wide, overwhelming in its course fourteen towns and villages; and had it not separated before reaching Catania, that city would have been virtually annihilated as were Herculaneum and Pompeii. The walls had been purposely raised to a height of sixty feet, to repel the danger if possible, but the torrent accumulated behind them, and poured down in a cascade of fire upon the town. It still continued to advance, and, after a course of fifteen miles, ran into the sea, where it formed a mole 600 yards long. The walls were neither thrown down nor fused by contact with the ignited matter, and have since been discovered by Prince Biscari, when excavating in search of a well known to have existed in a certain spot, and from the steps of which the lava may now be seen curling over like a monstrous billow in the very act of falling. "The great crater fell in during this eruption, and a fissure, six feet wide and twelve miles long, opened in the plain of S. Leo. In the space of six weeks, the habitations of 27,000 persons were destroyed, a vast extent of the most fertile land rendered desolate for ages, the course of rivers changed, and the whole face of the district transformed."--_Marquis of Ormonde's Autumn in Sicily._ VOLCANIC ERUPTION--MOUNT ETNA IN 1849.