OCR Text |
Show MI. yliTNA. Today's dispatches bring further account of the eruption of Mt. JKtna although there has as yet beon but little loss of life from its current activity. For nearly twenty-five hundred years .Etna has broken out at intervals, inter-vals, eighty-one eruptions having been fairly authenticated; yet none has been very serious since the close of the Fifteenth century. In spite, however, of the natural dread caused by these volcanic outbreaks, and of the feeig of insecurity experienced by all who live near where they are likely to occur, the elopes of volcanoes are always the most thickly populated sections in most countries. coun-tries. On the slope of .-Etna there are today over :5D0,tHK) people a greater number In proportion to the area than are . to lie found iu any other section of Italy. The reason for this is not far to seek. The richest and most fertile soil in the world to be found in such regions. The land not ouly yields abundant crops, but it needs very little artificial fertilizing. The matct'ial thrown out by an eruption decomposes turner the influence of the wind and ain, and forms a soil iu which ahnoE-t everything cau be grown; and peo. pie iiock to such lands, despite the fact that they are constant danger of a violent death. |