The stream had moved at the
rate of thirteen miles in twenty days, but as it cooled it moved
less quickly, and during the last twenty-three days of its course, it
advanced only two miles. On reaching the sea the water, of course,
began to boil violently, and clouds of steam arose, carrying with them
particles of scoriae. Towards the end of April the stream on the west
side of Catania, which had appeared to be consolidated, again burst
forth, and flowed into the garden of the Benedictine Monastery of San
Niccola, and then branched off into the city. Attempts were made to
build walls to arrest its progress.
An attempt of another kind was made by a gentleman of Catania, named
Pappalardo, who took fifty men with him, having previously provided them
with skins for protection from the intense heat and with crowbars to
effect an opening in the lava. They pierced the solid outer crust of
solidified lava, and a rivulet of the molten interior immediately gushed
out and flowed in the direction of Paterno, whereupon 500 men of that
town, alarmed for its safety, took up arms and caused Pappalardo and his
men to desist. The lava did not altogether stop for four months, and two
years after it had ceased to flow it was found to be red hot beneath the
surface. Even eight years after the eruption quantities of steam escaped
from the lava after a shower of rain.
THE STONES EJECTED
The stones which were ejected from the crater during this eruption
were often of considerable magnitude, and Borelli calculated that the
diameter of one which he saw was 50 feet; it was thrown to a distance
of a mile, and as it fell it penetrated the earth to a depth of 23 feet.
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