(_b._) _Val del Bove._--The most wonderful feature of Mount Etna is the celebrated Val del Bove (Valle del Bue), of which S. von Waltershausen has furnished a very beautiful plate[6]--a vast amphitheatre hewn out of the eastern flank of the mountain, just below the snow-mantled platform. It is a physical feature somewhat after the fashion of Monte Somma in Vesuvius, but exceeds it in magnitude as Etna exceeds Vesuvius. The Val del Bove is about five miles in diameter, bounded throughout three-fourths of its circumference by precipitous walls of ashes, scoriæ, and lava, traversed by innumerable dykes, and rising inwards to a height of between 3000 and 4000 feet. Towards the east the cliffs gradually fall to a height of about 500 feet, and at this side the vast chasm opens out upon the slope of the mountain. At the head of the Val del Bove rises the platform, surmounted by the great cone and crater. It will thus be seen that by means of this hollow we have access almost to the very heart of the mountain. What is very remarkable about the structure of this valley is that the beds exhibit "the _quâ-quâ_ versal dip"--in other words, they dip away on all sides from the centre--which has led to the conclusion that in the centre is a focus of eruption which had become closed up antecedently to the formation of the valley itself. Lyell has explained this point very clearly by showing that this focus had ceased to eject matter at some distant period, and that the existing crater at the summit of the mountain had poured out its lavas over those of the extinct orifice. This was prior to the formation of the Val del Bove itself; and the question remains for consideration how this vast natural amphitheatre came to be hollowed out; for its structure shows unquestionably that it owes its form to some process of excavation.