2-982-175 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Crater of Mount Etna a few days prior to the Late Earthquake, 1858. 'A violent earthquake has occurred upon the high cone of Etna...it threw down, with a tremendous noise, within the abyss of the great crater half of the mass of the cone; and such a quantity of matter falling down, the compressed air, regaining its elasticity, blew out of the principal crater with great violence, in the form of the densest smoke, all those ashes and sand, mingled with the scoriae, with which the cone was raised up long ago; and this dusty smoke, carried through the atmosphere, was thence driven by the north-west wind...in considerable quantities, which gave rise to the suspicion that there was an eruption; but such was not the case. By this occurrence the height of the cone was reduced some fifty feet, and the diameter of the large crater increased one quarter'. From "Illustrated London News", 1858.