Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 004.djvu/80

 :''Interdum, scopulos, avulsaque viscera Montis Erigit eructans, liquefactaque saxa sub auras Cam gemitu glomerat fundoque exæstuat imo.''

After this we find in Thucydides, that in the 76. Olympiad, which is about 476. before Christ, there was another Fire, and about 50. years after that, another.

Then, in the time of the Roman Consulls there haped four Eruptions of Ætna, recorded by Diodorus Siculus and Polybius

The next was in the time of Julius Cæsar, related by the said Diodorus to have been so feirce, that the Sea about Lipara (an island neere Sicily) by its fervent heat burnt the Ships, and kill'd all Fishes thereabout.

Another we read of in the Reign of Caligula, about 40. years after Christ, which was so dreadful, that it made that Emperour, then being in Sicily, to fly for it.

About the Martyrdome of the Romish S. Agatha it burned againe very fiercely; though some say, that by vertue of her intercession it was stay'd from reaching Catania.

Againe it burnt A. C. 812. in the Reign of Charles M.

Then from the year 1160 to 1669, whole Sicily was shaken with many terrible Earth-quakes, and the Eruptions of the same Mountain destroyed a vast tract of inhabited land round about it, and reacht as far as Catania; the Cathedral of which it destroy'd, and the religious men living in it.

Againe, in the year 1284. there happened another terrible fire about the time of the death of Charles king of Sicily and Arragon.


 * A. 1329 until 1333. there was another. A. 1408. another.
 * A. 1444. another, which lasted till 1447.
 * A. 1536. another, which lasted a year.
 * A. 1633. another, continuing several years,

A. 1650. it burnt on the North-East-side, and vomited so much fire, that by the fiery Torrents, caused thereby, great devastation was made, as Kircher relates in his Mundus Subterraneus; whose assistance we have also made use of in the foregoing Chronology together with that of Philotheus.

The same Author, having been in Sicily himself, observeth, that the people of Catania, digging for Pumice-stones, do find at the depth of 100 palmes (which is about 68. feet) streets Rh