Having now dealt in a necessarily cursory manner with volcanoes of distant parts of the globe, we may proceed to the consideration of the group of active volcanoes which still survive in Europe, as they possess a special interest, not only from their proximity and facility of access, at least to residents in Europe and the British Isles, but from their historic incidents; and in this respect Vesuvius, though not by any means the largest of the group, stands the first, and demands more special notice. The whole group rises from the shores of the Mediterranean, and consists of Vesuvius, Etna, Stromboli, one of the Lipari Islands, and Vulcano, a mountain which has given the name to all mountains of similar origin with itself.[1] Along with these are innumerable cones and craters of extinct or dormant volcanoes, of which a large number have been thrown out on the flanks of Etna. (_a._) _Prehistoric Ideas regarding the Nature of this Mountain._--Down to the commencement of the Christian era this mountain had given no ostensible indication that it contained within itself a powerful focus of volcanic energy. True, that some vague tradition that the mountain once gave forth fire hovered around its borders; and several ancient writers, amongst them Diodorus Siculus and Strabo, inferred from the appearances of the higher parts of the mountain and the character of the rocks, which were "cindery and as if eaten by fire," that the country was once in a burning state, "being full of fiery abysses, though now extinct from want of fuel." Seneca (B.C. 1 to A.D. 64) had detected the true character of Vesuvius, as "having been a channel for the internal fire, but not its food;" nevertheless, at this period the flanks of the mountain were covered by fields and vineyards, while the summit, partially enclosed with precipitous walls of the long extinct volcano, Somma, was formed of slaggy and scoriaceous material, with probably a covering of scrub. Here it was that the gladiator Spartacus (B.C. 72), stung by the intolerable evils of the Roman Government, retreated to the very summit of the mountain with some trusty followers. Clodius the Prætor, according to the narration of Plutarch, with a party of three thousand men, was sent against them, and besieged them in a mountain (meaning Vesuvius or Somma) having but one narrow and difficult passage, which Clodius kept guarded; all the rest was encompassed with broken and slippery precipices, but upon the top grew a great many wild vines; the besieged cut down as many as they had need of, and twisted them into ladders long enough to reach from thence to the bottom, by which, without any danger, all got down except one, who stayed behind to throw them their arms, after which he saved himself with the rest.[2] "On the top" must (as Professor Phillips observes) be interpreted the summit of the exterior slope or crater edge, which would appear from the narrative