The vulcano's, or, Burning and fire-vomiting mountains, famous in the world, with their remarkables collected for the most part out of Kircher's Subterraneous world, and exposed to more general view in English : upon the relation of the late wonderful and prodigious eruptions of Ætna, thereby to occasion greater admirations of the wonders of nature (and of the God of nature) in the mighty element of fire.

Corallary I.

From these things it plainly appears, that the Mountain, its matter being consumed, takes respit; sometimes for a greater, sometimes for a lesser space; till at length increased by new provision of com∣bustible matter, it breaks forth, and acts those Catastrophe's, which with admiration we read of. And yet it is so far from being diminish∣ed by so great an eructation of matter, that it seems rather to be aug∣mented. Sith indeed the Citizens of Catania digged for Pumice∣stones, and opening the Earth the depth of an hundred Palms, found Streets paved with Marbles, and various footsteps of Antiquities; which plainly teach, that Cities built here of old time, have been overwhelmed with the castings off, or rejectaneous offalls and off∣casts, not without the great increase of the Mountain. They found

besides, very many Bridges of Pumices, which were made, and consisted only out of the meer flux or flowing of the fiery Torrents; the Earthy softer substances being eat away. And of late, not far from the City, an Image of our Lady, was under Earth (as they say) accidentally found. Whose reputed Miracles have got her al∣ready much fame. From the ruines, no doubt, of some Religious Place, &c. Flame also now and then appears in the exalted or higher rais'd Earth; anon disappears: which are clear and conspicuous signs and tokens of the Earths being rais'd. Yet Aelian tells us, that as well Aetna, as Parnasses and Olympus, did appear to be less and less to such as sail'd at Sea. The height thereof sinking, as it seem'd. And thereupon supposes the decay thereof, and of the World. But an Answer is at hand to this; That it might then perhaps decrease in magnitude. For it may be sometimes, in some Ages, augmented; and sometimes diminished: But in the whole rather augmented. Or else; It was but a meer fancy and opinion. But these are known things. This one thing only hath, after a won∣derful manner, tortur'd the wits of Philosophers hitherto; In that they apprehend not whence the unsatiableness and greedy devouring of the perpetual fire should be supply'd with new and new food alwayes. And how the Pumices, Cinders and Ashes, and the other refuses of burnt matter, should in succession of time be converted into new materials, fit for fires. Which knot, that it may be un∣tied;

You may remember that before (elsewhere) we shewed; how that to the conservation of Nature in its perpetual & constant course, there was a necessity of an everlasting circulation and return round of things. In the Heavens, the Elements; the Air, Water, Earth, and its several sorts, soils, and Minerals, &c. even with the very Fire also, and its materials and nutriment. As appears in the per∣petual wheeling round of the Planets and Stars, by a constant and inviolable Law of Nature, so many thousands of years. The perpe∣tual motion and mutation of the Elements; alwayes unvariable in the greatest variety of things. The perpetual circulation of waters, both within, and about the Earth. All Rivers come from the Sea, and return to the Sea again; as Solomon, the Wise, hath confirm'd to us. The Sun dries up the vapours of the Sea; the vapours are received into rain, and return back to the Earth and Sea again. Elegantly expressed by Ovid;

The Earth resolv'd is turned into streams; Water to Air; the purer Air to slames. From whence they back return; The fiery flakes Are turn'd to Air; The Air thickned takes The Liquid form of Water; That Earth makes.

Or, as Dubartas has it;

The purest humour in the Sea, the Sun Exhales i'th Air; which there resolv'd, anon Return to Water, and descend again, By sundry wayes into his Mother Main.

Many therefore wondring whilst they behold Aetna burning so ma∣ny thousand years, how the Mountain should not be consumed by so long and lasting Burnings, Nor the Fire ever extinct. But

Bursting wide ope its Fornace Mouth, still streams With melted stones; still spues out Globes of Flames.

And by a thousand Fires, as Virgil exprest it before,

It spending still the fewel which it burns; Yet still to former strength afresh returns.

These certainly, if they understood the circling operations of Na∣ture, would not so strangely admire; when as food is never at any time wanting thereto, to perpetuate the Burnings. The Fires burn the Mountain, and convert the Miscellany, or mixture of combu∣stible matter into Ashes. Out of the Ashes mixt with Water, a new food and nourishment of everlasting Fire is generated;

Omnia continuo rapidos virtuntur in orbes; Naturâ motus perpetuante suos.

Which may be englished out of our Incomparable Cowly, altering a word from his extravagant allusion to drinking.

Nothing in Nature's constant found; But an Eternal course goes round.

This premised; I take for granted, First, That a great plenty of Salt lies hid in the Ashes: which even from hence is proved; That Salt is no wayes more easily got, than from a Lixive or Lee of things reduced into Ashes. By this means Nitre, Salt, Allom, in some more moist places, breaking or springing out of the walls and sides, as also in the dunging-places of Pidgeons and other Animals, first vegi∣tated and quickned with Urine, is dug forth in most plentiful store and abundance.

I suppose for granted, Secondly, That out of the humid Sea, tinctured and seasoned with a fat saltishness and mixture of other Mineral things; an huge quantity of Exhalations, together with the spirits, and insensible corpuseles of the said things, are extracted by vertue of the Sun. Which being both extrinsecally resolved into Rain, Hail, Snows, settle about the top of the highest Mountains; and also intrinsecally deriv'd through subterraneous passages of the Sea, do fertilize the matter of the Fire-houses under ground, with new provant.

These things supposed, I say, That the Fire perpetually powerful, and waxing strong in its Store-houses, is also by occult fibres and veins of the Sea insinuating and entering underneath, perpetually aug∣mented; whilst that it replenishes and recruits the matter consum'd away with fire, (as are the Ashes, and the most porous stones of Pumices) with a Sulphureous Soot, and Bituminous Spirits; And in some measure prepares and disposes it for an enkindling and in∣flamation. But when by the melting of the Hail and Snow; both with the fervent heat of the Sun, and also with the heat of so near Fire lurking within; and by the coming on of Rain, the Dust and Ashes be soaked through with a most plentiful bewetting; From hence a certain mixt matter is propagated, which insinuated more deeply within the porous recesles and spaces of the Pumice-stones; And then Sulphureous and Bituminous Spirits, which but now late∣ly lodged there, intervening to their help; at length ends (presently, as soon as it is waxen ripe) in a new food and nourishment of the Fire. And that this is so; I found by an irrefragable experiment, in the brinks and edges of the Valleys of Aetna, Vesuvius, and Strongylus, burnt up with Fire; in most of the Cindry and Ashy walls and sides of which I found an immense quantity of Salt, Allom, and Niere springing forth; In some also, a slowing and gushing forth of Bitumen, Napththe, and the like fat oily liquors, to∣gether her with a most copious quantity of Sulphur. Which have their

original from no where else; but partly out of the Cinders of com∣bust and burnt things; from which must necessarily be begot a new off-spring and succession of Salt and Nitre; Partly from the Sul∣phureous corpuseles or spirits; which while they continually exhale from the lowest Gulph of the Mountain, are condensed into Sulphur in the more cold climate of the Mountain. And so that mixt matter is generated, cut of Salt, Nitre. 'Allom, Bitumen' and Sulphur, which insinuated (as hath been said) into the pores of the Calx or Calcined Lime, or Ashes of the burnt and adust Pumice, and Stones, it administers that perpetual and everlasting fuel and food of Fire, which we have hitherto inquired after. For this, corrupted by the Fire, as it prepares new burnings; so the fat and sulphureous matter being burnt up, which lurk'd and lay dormant within the Pumices, undergo some respits, or truces, as it were; Till the capa∣city of the Pumices, and the remaining Calx, or Calcined Ashes, be replenished again, as was said, with the like new birth of combu∣stible matter. But now what happens in the exteriour and outmost surface of Aetna; It's certain, the same is effected in all other slam∣mivomous Mountains. Nature carrying it self after the same man∣ner alwayes. Yea, he that shall more narrowly and throughly dive into these things, he cannot be ignorant, that the process of Nature, which we have expressed in the exteriour surface of the Mountain; but that it keeps the same course and tenour, or order, in its inti∣mate and inmost Fire-houses, or Receptacles.