The volume of lava emitted during the eruption amounted to many millions
of cubic feet. Ferara considers that the length of the stream was at
least fifteen miles, while its average width was between two and three
miles, so that it covered at least forty square miles of surface.
Among the towns overflowed by this great eruption was Mompilieri.
Thirty-five years afterward, in 1704, an excavation was made on the site
of the principal church of this place, and at the depth of thirty-five
feet the workmen came upon the gate, which was adorned with three
statues. From under an arch which had been formed by the lava, one
of these statues, with a bell and some coins, were extracted in good
preservation. This fact is remarkable; for in a subsequent eruption,
which happened in 1766, a hill about fifty feet in height, being
surrounded on either side by two streams of lava, was in a quarter of
an hour swept along by the current. The latter event may be explained by
supposing that the hill in question was cavernous in its structure,
and that the lava, penetrating into the cavities, forced asunder their
walls, and so detached the superincumbent mass from its supports.
It is not by its streams of fire alone that Etna ravages the valleys and
plains at its base. It sometimes also deluges them with great floods of
water. On the 2d of March, 1755, two streams of lava, issuing from the
highest crater, were at once precipitated on an enormous mass of very
deep snow, which then clothed the summit.
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