Volume 2

Principles of geology : being an inquiry how far the former changes of the earth's surface are referable to causes now in operation. / By Charles Lyell ...

  • Lyell, Charles, Sir, 1797-1875.
Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Principles of geology : being an inquiry how far the former changes of the earth's surface are referable to causes now in operation. / By Charles Lyell ... Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    124/474 (page 112)
    whole district over which its lavas extend, the circuit is probably twice that extent. Divided into three regions. — The cone is divided by nature into three distinct zones, called the fertile, the woody, and the desert regions. The first of these, com- prising the delightful country around the skirts of the mountain, is well cultivated, thickly inhabited, and covered with olives, vines, corn, fruit-trees, and aro- matic herbs. Higher up, the woody region encircles the mountain—an extensive forest, six or seven miles in width, affording pasturage for numerous flocks. The trees are of various species, the chestnut, oak, and pine being most luxuriant; while in some tracts are groves of cork and beech. Above the forest is the desert region, a waste of black lava and scoria;; where, on a kind of plain, rises the cone to the height of about eleven hundred feet, from which sulphureous vapours are continually evolved. The most grand and original feature in the physiognomy of Etna is the multitude of minor cones which are distributed over its flanks, and which are most abundant in the woody region. These, although they appear but trifling irregularities when viewed from a distance as subordinate parts of so imposing and colossal a mountain, would, neverthe- less, be deemed hills of considerable altitude in almost any other region. Cones produced by lateral eruptions.—Without enu- merating numerous monticules of ashes thrown out at different points, there are about eighty of these se- condary volcanos, of considerable dimensions; fifty-two on the west and north, and tiventy-seven on the east side of Etna. One of the largest, called Monte Mi- nardo, near Bronte, is upwards of 700 feet in height; and a double hill near Nicolosi, called Monti Rossi,