VISIT TO A CRATER.

Shannon News, 6 November 1923, Page 3

VISIT TO A CRATER.

DIN OF A THOUSAND FACTORIES

A vivid description of the recent eruption of Mt. Etna was given by a special correspondent of the London “Daily Mail.” "The scene is different from what might have been expected,” he wrote. “It is not precisely terrible, sinse it is possible to approach the lava at the risk of having one’s face scorched, but the relentless flow is slowly crushing the houses out of shape, and* smothering them under hundreds of thousands of tons of red-hot cinders. The first view of the mountain disclosed a river of smoke pouring down the slopes. On cither side were large tracts of black and almost cooling lav.a. The air grew oppressive hot. A sudden bend of the road showed an example of relentless, if slow, destruction. A hazol-not grove was gradually disappearing under the lava, the peasants idly and powerlessly watching tho creeping terror.” The writer visited one of the 20 erupting craters after a ten-hour climb, mostly on muleback. “For three miles, ho wrote, ‘the way lay under forest -vees, whose" ■ branches, were covered with soat. We then eminches deep in ash, which a week ago carried grass and bushes. Five hundred yards distant the lava river slid with a rustling sound. On either sides stood dykes of cooled lava. “From beyond the steep slope came a din like that of a thousand factories. Masses of white, grey, blue and saffron smoke poured out. The slope ended at a narrow ridge at the foot of which was a new crater about 1000 yards across. The whole of the .irregular basin, 100 ft below the onlooker, was covered with red and black ' lava. Eighty yards distant a jagged heap, forming one' of the volcano’s cinder heaps, was constantly fed by masses of flaming lava, showered like a colossal firework display. Five new

mouths, were emitting a thick, oily smoke with a roaring noise. This booming grew louder every 15 or 20 seconds, and then, with a vicious crash and a rush of smoke, enormous blobs of molten lava were hurled into the air and fell glowing around the crater,"