Observations on Mount Vesuvius, Mount Etna, and other volcanos: in a series of letters, addressed to the Royal Society / from the Honourable Sir W. Hamilton ... To which are added, explanatory notes by the author, hitherto unpublished.

  • William Hamilton
Date:
1772
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on Mount Vesuvius, Mount Etna, and other volcanos: in a series of letters, addressed to the Royal Society / from the Honourable Sir W. Hamilton ... To which are added, explanatory notes by the author, hitherto unpublished. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    inhabited by Empedocles. As the an- cients ufed to facrifice to the celeftial gods on the top of Etna [z], it may very well be the ruin of a temple that ferved for that purpofe. From hence we went a little further over the inclined plain abovementioned, and faw the evident marks of a dreadful torrent of hot water, that came out of the great crater at the time of an eruption of lava in the year 1755, and upon which phenomenon the Cano- nico Recupero, our guide, has publifhed a differtation. Luckily this torrent did not take its courfe over the inhabited parts of the mountain; as a hke accident on Mount Vefuvius in 1621 {wept away fome towns and villages in its neighbourhood, with thoufands of their inhabitants. The [x] This paffage, in Cornelius Severus’s poem upon Etna, feems to confirm my opinion : ‘¢ Placantefque etiam czleftia numina thure ‘¢ Summo cerne jugo, vel qua liberrimus AZtna “¢ Tmprofpectus hiat; tantarum femina rerum *¢ Si nihil irritet flammas, ftupeatque profundum.” common
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