A Chronological Accompt of the Several Incendium's or Fires of Mount Aetna

But besides this mischief from poisonous Exhalations, Stagnation of the Air, or Water impregnated with mineral spirits, they sometimes perish by other ways. For there being in these Mines an incredible mass of wood to support the Pitts and the Horizontal passages, (the Putei and Cuniculi) in all places but where 'tis Rocky, men are sometimes destroy'd by the wood set on fire. And in the Gold-mine at Chrennitz the wood was once set on fire by the carelessness of a boy, and 50 Miners smothered thereby; who were all taken out but one, that was afterwards found to be dissolv'd by the Vitrioll water, nothing escaping either of flesh or bones but only some of his cloaths. I am &c. Vienna April. 20 1669. A Chronological Account Of the several Incendium's or Fires of Mount Aetna. The present Fire of Aetna, (whereof there was lately a Relation printed here in the Savoy) will make it appear not unseasonable to reflect back upon former Ages, and to collect from History the severall Eruptions hapned there, together with the times of them, and some observations recorded by Authors concerning the same. To pass by what is related by Berosus, Orpheus and other less credible Authors, about the Eruptions of this Mountain, both at the time of the ingress of the Ionian Colonies into Sicily, and that of the Argonautes (which latter was in the 12th Age before the Christian account;) we shall first take notice of that, which happen'd at the time of the Expedition of Aeneas, who being terrified by the fire of this then burning Mountain, left that Island; whereof Virgil l. 3. Æneid. gives this notable description; Ignarique utæ Cyclopum allabimur oris, Portus ab accessu ventorum immovus et ingens, Ipse sed horribilis juxta tonat Aetna ruinis, Interdumque etiam prorumpit ad athera nubem Turbine fumantem picco et candente favilla. Attollitque globos flammarum, et sidera lambit. Interdum Interdum scopulos, avulsaque viscera Montis Erigit eructans, liquefactaque saxa sub auras Cum gemitu glomerat, fundoque exsustat imo. After this we find in Thucydides, that in the 76th 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 Consuls there haped four Eruptions of Aetna, recorded by Diodorus Siculus and Polybius. The next was in the time of Julius Caesar, related by the said Diodorus to have been so fierce, 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 Emperor, then being in Sicily, to fly for it. About the Martyrdom of the Roman 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 untill 1333. there was another. A. 1408. another. A. 1414. 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) Street; ved with Marble, and many footsteps of Antiquity; an argument, that Towns have stood there in former ages, which have been overwhelmed by the Matter cast out of this Mountain. They have also found several Bridges of Pumice-stones, doubtless made by the flux of the fiery Torrents, the Earth being very much raised since. Now whether these Eruptions are caused by actual subterranean Fires, lighting upon combustible matter; or by Fire struck out of falling and breaking stones, whose sparks meet with Nitro-sulphureous or other inflammable substances heap'd together in the bowels of the Earth, and by the expansive violence of the Fire forc'd to take more room, and so bursting out with the impetuosity we see; may not be unworthy of a Philosopher's speculation. An Account Concerning a Woman having a Double Matrix; as the Publisher hath Englished it out of French, lately printed at Paris, where the Body was opened. This Figure (which in the Cut here annex'd is the II.) represents the two Matrixes, * It may be, that that, which is by M. Vassal, Publisher of this Relation, esteem'd a second Womb, is nothing else, but the true Matrix lengthen'd; or that, which by Anatomists is call'd Tuba Fallopia. See Bartol. Anatom. Reform. l. i. c 27. and others. Vassal Chirurgeon, opening the Body of a woman of 32 years of age, of a sanguin Constitution, and a masculin port. These two Matrixes were so well disposed by an extraordinary contrivance of Nature, that the True one had conceived eleven severall times, viz. 7 males and 4 females, all born at the full time, and all perfectly well form'd; but they were at last follow'd by a brother yet a fetus, that was conceiv'd in an adjunct Uterus, in a place so little capable of distension, that seeking enlargement, after it had caused to the Mother for two months and an half grievous symptoms, did at last, being of the age of about 3 or 4 months, break prison, and found its grave in that of its mother, by a very great effusion of blood in the whole capacity of her abdomen, which cast the mother into such violent convulsive motions for 3 days together, that she dyed of them. Whereupon the said Vassal, after having embalmed the parts, he had made at his house for a whole month together the particular dissection thereof, before all the most Curious and knowing Physicians, Chirurgeons, Apothecaries, Mid-wifes, and other Searchers of Nature, that are in Paris, thought good to preserve the History thereof by committing it and the Figure of the parts spoken of, to the Press, together with a Table, for better explanation; which we think fit here to annex in Latin: VVVV APars.