Mount Etna.

Manawatu Herald, 14 July 1892, Page 2

Mount Etna.

To the unfortunate Sicilians the news that Mount Etna is in eruption must be alarming, It is said that the eruption is assuming alarming proportions, (the villages {of Rioolosi and Belhaso being in danger from the lava flow. Earthquakes are also frequent. This voloano, and its neighbour to the north on the west coast of Italy, Vesuvius, have for centuries troubled those who lived near to them. Eruptions of .Etna are mentioned, as far back as 1698 80. ■ One in 1-169 overwhelmed Catania, the town lying on the soa coast at the foot of : the mountain, and 15,000 inhabitants perished in the burning ruins. Eruptions are mentioned many other times up to 1669 when tens of thousands of persons perished in the streams of lava which rolled over the whole country for forty days. Further eruptions occurred in 1766 and 1787 and a dreadful earthquake followed in the latter year, at Messina, in which 40,000 persons are said to have perished. The town of Bronte was destroyed by an eruption in 1882. A violent eruption occurred again in 1852, 1865, 1868, 1874, 1879, 1888, and again in 1886 which was accompanied by an earthquake and much damage was done. It appears not unlikely that, we shall have news about Vesuvius breaking out before long, as there appears to have always been a sympathy between the two volcanoes though a space close on a year has passed between the Outbreaks. Some of the dates of eruptions of Vesuvius show this, there having outbreaks in 1865, 1867, 1868, 1872, 1876, 1878 and 1885.