CATANIA
“YESTERDAY,” Uncle Paul resumed, “Jules asked me if the lava-streams
could not reach towns situated near volcanoes. The following story will
answer his question. It is about an eruption of Mount Etna.”
“Etna is that volcano in Sicily where the big chestnut tree of a hundred
horses is?” asked Claire.
“Yes. I must tell you that two hundred years ago there occurred in
Sicily one of the most terrible eruptions on record. During the night,
after a furious storm, the earth began to tremble so violently that a
great many houses fell. Trees swayed like reeds shaken by the wind;
people, fleeing distracted into the country to avoid being crushed under
the ruins of their buildings, lost their footing on the quaking ground,
stumbled, and fell. At that moment Etna burst in a fissure four leagues
long, and along this fissure rose a number of volcanic mouths, vomiting,
amid the crash of frightful detonations, clouds of black smoke and
calcined sand. Soon seven of these mouths united in an abyss that for
four months did not cease thundering, glowing, and throwing up cinders
and lava. The crater of Etna, at first quite at rest, as if its furnaces
had no connection with the new volcanic mouths, woke up a few days after
and threw to a prodigious height a column of flames and smoke; then the
whole mountain shook, and all the crests that dominated its crater fell
into the depths of the volcano. The next day four mountaineers dared to
climb to the top of Etna. They found the crater very much enlarged by
the falling-in of the day before: its orifice, which before had measured
one league, now measured two.
“In the meantime, torrents of lava were pouring from all the crevasses
of the mountain down upon the plain, destroying houses, forests, and
crops. Some leagues from the volcano, on the seacoast, lies Catania, a
large town surrounded then by strong walls. Already the liquid fire had
devoured several villages, when the stream reached the walls of Catania
and spread over the country. There, as if to show its strength to the
terrified Catanians, it tore a hill away and transported it some
distance; it lifted in one mass a field planted with vines and let it
float for some time, until the green was reduced to charcoal and
disappeared. Finally, the fiery stream reached a wide and deep valley.
The Catanians believed themselves saved: no doubt the volcano would
exhaust its strength by the time it covered the vast basin which the
lava had just entered. But what an error of judgment! In the short space
of six hours, the valley was filled, and the lava, overflowing, advanced
straight toward the town in a stream half a league wide and ten meters
high. It would have been all over with Catania if, by the luckiest
chance, another current, whose direction crossed the first, had not come
and struck against the fiery flood and turned it from its course. The
stream, thus turned, coasted the ramparts of the town within
pistol-shot, and turned toward the sea.”
“I was very much afraid for those poor Catanians,” interposed Emile,
“when you spoke of that wall of fire, high as a house, going straight
toward the town.”
“All is not over yet,” his uncle proceeded. “The stream, I told you, was
going toward the sea. There was, then, a formidable battle between the
water and the fire. The lava presented a perpendicular front of 1500
meters in extent and a dozen meters high. At the touch of that burning
wall, which continued plunging further and further into the waves,
enormous masses of vapor rose with horrible hissings, darkened the sky
with their thick clouds, and fell in a salt rain over all the region. In
a few days the lava had made the limits of the shore recede three
hundred meters.
“In spite of that, Catania was still menaced. The stream, swollen with
new tributaries, grew from day to day and approached the town. From the
top of the walls the inhabitants followed with terror the implacable
progress of the scourge. The lava finally reached the ramparts. The
fiery flood rose slowly, but it rose ceaselessly; from hour to hour it
was found to have risen a little higher. It touched the top of the
walls, whereupon, yielding to the pressure, they were overthrown for the
length of forty meters, and the stream of fire penetrated the town.”
“My goodness!” cried Claire. “Those poor people are lost?”
“No, not the people, for lava runs very slowly, on account of its sticky
nature, and one can be warned in time; it was the town itself that ran
the greatest risk. The quarters invaded by the lava were the highest;
from there the current could spread everywhere. So Catania seemed
destined to total destruction, when it was saved by the courage of some
men who attempted to battle with the volcano. They bethought themselves
to construct stone walls, which, placed across the route of the
on-coming stream, would change its direction. This device partly
succeeded, but the following was the most efficacious. Lava streams
envelop themselves in a kind of solid sheath, embank themselves in a
canal formed of blocks coagulated and welded together. Under this
covering the melted matter preserves its fluidity and continues its
ravaging course. They thought, then, that by breaking these natural
dikes at a well-chosen spot, they would open to the lava a new route
across country and would thus turn it from the town. Followed by a
hundred alert and vigorous men, they attacked the stream, not far from
the volcano, with blows of iron bars. The heat was so great that each
worker could strike only two or three blows in succession, after which
he withdrew to recover his breath. However, they managed to make a
breach in the solid sheath, when, as they had foreseen, the lava flowed
through this opening. Catania was saved, not without great loss, for
already the lava flood had consumed, within the town walls, three
hundred houses and some palaces and churches. Outside of Catania, this
eruption, so sadly celebrated, covered from five to six square leagues
with a bed of lava in some places thirteen meters thick, and destroyed
the homes of twenty-seven thousand persons.”
“Without those brave men who did not hesitate, at the risk of being
burnt alive, to go and open a new passage for the stream of fire,
Catania would certainly have been lost,” remarked Jules.
“Catania would have been all burnt down, there is no doubt. To-day its
calcined ruins would be buried under a bed of cold lava, and there would
be nothing left but the name of the large town that had disappeared.
Three or four stout-hearted men revive the courage of the terrified
population; they hope that heaven will aid them in their devotion, and,
ready to sacrifice their lives, they prevent the frightful disaster. Ah!
may God give you grace, my dear child, to imitate them in the time of
danger; for, you see, if man is great through his intelligence, he is
still greater through his heart. In my old age, when I hear you spoken
of, I shall be more gladdened by the good you may have done than by the
knowledge you may have acquired. Knowledge, my little friend, is only a
better means of aiding others. Remember that well, and when you are a
man bear yourself in danger as did those of Catania. I ask it of you in
return for my love and my stories.”
Jules furtively wiped away a tear. His uncle perceived that he had sown
his word in good ground.
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