MT. ETNA ERUPTION

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 74, 18 September 1911, Page 5

MT. ETNA ERUPTION

A MILLION STERLING DAMAGE By Gable—Press Association t-Copyrfjat. Received 17, 5.5 p.m. London, September lfl. The damage caused by the flow of lava from Mt. Etna is estimated at a milliot sterling.

ETNA'S EIGHTY ERUPTIONS. Perhaps no mountain in the world has provoked the wonder, the admiration, the dread, and the superstitious awe that Etna ha*. In an article in the Nineteenth Century last year the Hon. A. N. Hood recalled some of the more notable of the eighty odd outbreaks that have been recorded. In 3W) B.C. a torrent of lava ran down the eastern side a distance of twentyfour miles to the sea, which it entered, with a breadth of two miles, forcing Hamilcar the Carthaginian, on his way to Syracuse from Messina, to march his troops round by the hack of the mountain. In 12fi B.C. Etna poured forth' streams of lava, and "the sea by Lipnra boiled furiously, several ships being burnt by subterranean fires, and a quantity of dead fish were cast the shore, which, being devoured by tha '"■■ inhabitants, canscd a fatal epidemic." Four years after Catania was grievously menaced, and would have been entirely destroyed had not the lava, when almost 'within the city walls, turned at right angles and flowed into the sea. ■• The Emperor of Caligula was frightened.,, ' from Messina by an outbreak; and another eruption occurred in the .second ''; year after the capture of Jerusalem by. Titus. In the reign of the Emperor Decius (A.D. 204), Etna; broke out again with loud bellowings, vomiting a torrent of lava which menaced Catania once more. Charlemagne seems to liave been vastly alarmed by an eruption in 812. One of the most disastrous convulsions in history occurred during the reign of William the Good, in 1180. Yet another eruption is recorded in 1329, when with' a crash like thunder the lava burst forth, while red-hot roeks> were hurled into the sea. New craters opened, vomiting lava and other burning matter. A terrible outbreak occurred in 1860, when a flow of lava, after overwhelming fourteen towns and villages, turned to- , wards Catania, and reaching Albanelli, hardly two miles from the city, it lifted up and transported to a considerable distance an argillaceous hill covered with' cornfields, then an entire vineyard, which floated for some time on it* burning bosom. At length it reached the walls of the city. Meeting this obstacle the lava flood accumulated till it rose to the. top of the rampart, which was <SO feet in height, and then tumbled over in a cascade of fire, overwhelming part: of the city with the ruins of the ancient Nauiuaohia and Circus.