If we climb up to this scene of volcanic activity, we shall be able to watch narrowly the operations which are going on there. On the morning of the 24th of April, 1874, I paid a visit to this interesting spot in order to get a near view of what was taking place. On reaching a point upon the side of the Sciarra, from which the crater was in full view before me, I witnessed, and made a sketch of, an outburst which then took place, and this sketch has been reproduced in fig. 4. Before the outburst, numerous light curling wreaths of vapour were seen ascending from fissures on the sides and bottom of the crater. Suddenly, and without the slightest warning, a sound was heard like that produced when a locomotive blows off its steam at a railway-station; a great volume of watery vapour was at the same time thrown violently into the atmosphere, and with it there were hurled upwards a number of dark fragments, which rose to the height of 400 or 500 feet above the crater, describing curves in their course, and then falling back upon the mountain. Most of these fragments tumbled into the crater with a loud, rattling noise, but some of them fell outside the crater, and a few rolled down the steep slope of the Sciarra into the sea. Some of these falling fragments were found to be still hot and glowing, and in a semi-molten condition, so that they readily received the impression of a coin thrust into them. [Illustration: Fig. 4.--The Crates of Stromboli as viewed from the side of the Sciarra during an eruption on the morning of April 24, 1874.] [Sidenote: APERTURES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE CRATER.] But on the upper side of the crater, at the point marked 6, on the section fig. 3, there exists a spot from which we can look down upon the bottom of the crater, and view the operations taking place there. This is the place where Spallanzani and other later investigators have carried on their observations, and, when the wind is blowing from the spectator towards the crater, he may sit for hours watching the wonderful scene displayed before him. The black slaggy bottom of the crater is seen to be traversed by many fissures or cracks, from most of which curling jets of vapour issue quietly, and gradually mingle with and disappear in the atmosphere. But besides these smaller cracks at the bottom of the crater, several larger openings are seen, which vary in number and position at different periods; sometimes only one of these apertures is visible, at others as many as six or seven, and the phenomena presented at these larger apertures are especially worthy of careful investigation.