certainly is a much greater variety in the erupted matter and lavas of the latter, than of the former; both abound with pyrites and crystallizations, or rather vitrifications. The sea shore at the foot of Etna, indeed, abounds with amber, of which there is none found at the foot of Vesuvius. At present there is a much greater quantity of sulphur and salts on the top of Vesuvius than on that of Etna; but this circumstance varies according to the degree of fermentation within; and our guide assured me, he had seen greater quantities on Etna at other times. In our way back to Catania, the Canon shewed me a little hill, covered with vines, which belonged to the Jesuits, and, as is well attested, was undermined by the lava in the year 1669, and transported half a mile from the place where it stood, without having damaged the vines. In great eruptions of Etna, the same sort of lightning, as described in my account of the last eruption of Vesuvius, has been frequently seen to issue from the smoak of its great crater. The antients took notice of the same phaenomenon; for Seneca (lib. ii. Nat. Quaest.) says,--"AEtna aliquando multo igne abundavit, ingentem vim arenae urentis effudit, involutus est dies pulvere, populosque subita nox terruit, _illo tempore aiunt plurima fuisse tonitrua et fulmina_." Till the year 252 of Christ, the chronological accounts of the eruptions of Etna are very imperfect: but as the veil of St. Agatha was in that year first opposed to check the violence of the torrents of lava, and has ever since been produced at the time of great eruptions; the miracles attributed to its influence, having been carefully recorded by the priests, have at least preserved the dates of such eruptions. The relicks of St. Januarius have rendered the same service to the lovers of natural history, by recording the great eruptions of Vesuvius. I find, by the dates of the eruptions of Etna, that it is as irregular and uncertain in its operations as Vesuvius[25]. The last eruption was in 1766. On our return from Messina to Naples, we were becalmed three days in the midst of the Lipari islands, by which we had an opportunity of seeing that they have all been evidently formed by explosion[26]; one of them, called Vulcano, is in the same state as the Solfaterra. Stromboli is a Volcano, existing in all its force, and, in its form of course, is the most pyramidal of all the Lipari Islands; we saw it throw up red hot stones from its crater frequently, and some small streams of lava issued from its side, and ran into the sea[27]. This Volcano differs from Etna and Vesuvius, by its continually emitting fire, and seldom any lava; notwithstanding its continual explosions, this island is inhabited, on one side, by about an hundred families. [Illustration: _Plate V._ STROMBOLI, one of the LIPARI ISLANDS.]