( 94 )

stances still existing in the adjacent parts ofAfrica, &c.

As the southern parts of Italy still aboundin sulphur and other inflammable substances,so probably did.the contiguous parts of the.bed of the Mediterranean, and by the im-mense friction which they must have suf-fered during this fall and the hollows thatinterceded the abrupted masses the firstsubterraneous fires might have been kind-led and the beds of the actual volcanoes pre-pared, which however did not probablyacquire sufficient strength to burst throughthe incumbent earthy strata until some agesafter, as I conjecture from the silence ofHomer with respect to Ætna, whose won-ders, had they existed in his time, he pro-bably would not have overlooked.

The separation of Sicily from Italy isvouched by ancient traditions, as may beseen in Pliny, Ovid, and Claudian.

Zancle quoque juncta fuifie

Dicitur Italiæ, donee confinia pontus

Abstulit, & media tellurem reppulitunda.

Ovid. Met am. Lib. 15. v. 2QO.

Trinacria