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Updated: June 4, 2025
For the people living near the Solfatara it is indeed common knowledge that there are times when this lability is so great that the slightest local disturbance of the kind we have described can provoke destructive eruptions of great masses of subterranean mud.
Such is the character of the general floor on which the more recent crater-cones of this district have been built. These are numerous, and all extinct with the exception of the Solfatara, near Puzzuoli, from which gases mixed with aqueous vapour are continually being exhaled. The gases consist of sulphuretted hydrogen mixed with a minute quantity of muriatic acid.
The floor was a surface of burning marl and whitish earthy dough-like paste, the effect of sulphurous acid vapours upon the argile of the lava. This stratum was in places more than 80 feet thick; and fumes rose fetid with sulphuric acid, and sulphates of soda, alumina, and ammonia from the dead white, purple red, vivid green, and brilliant yellow surface of the solfatara.
Here, more than in any other sphere of her activities, nature manifests that side of her which we are seeking to penetrate with understanding. Let us start with an observation known to the present writer from a visit to the Solfatara, a volcanic region near Naples.
The feeling that the physical explanation is inadequate is strengthened when the vapours have thinned out and one is surprised to see that every crack and cranny in the Solfatara, right up to the top of the trough, shows signs of increased activity.
It contains a crater in a state of subdued activity, called the Solfatara; an extinct volcano having a large crater called Monte Barbaro; and Lake Avernus, also supposed to be an extinct volcanic crater. Between Monte Barbaro and the sea, there was formerly a fiat piece of ground bordering on the Lucrine Lake, which is separated from the Bay of Baiae by a narrow strip of shingle.
The majesty of the site consists in its elevation above the level of the sea, in the profound solitude of these lofty regions, and in the immense space over which the eye ranges from the summit of the mountain. The wall of compact lava, forming the enclosure of the Caldera, is snow-white at its surface. The same colour prevails in the inside of the Solfatara of Puzzuoli.
Similarly, there is no such spot on the earth without sulphur being present in one form or another. Once again it is the Solfatara which offers us a phenomenon, this time in connexion with the special role sulphur plays in its activities, which, regarded with the eye of the spirit, assumes the significance of an instance 'worth a thousand'.
On this occasion no accident occurred; the hills, however, smoked like a Solfatara for two days. About 9 P.M. we heard voices, and I was told to discharge my rifle lest the kraal be closed to us; in due time we reached a long, low, dark line of sixty or seventy huts, disposed in a circle, so as to form a fence, with a few bushes thorns being hereabouts rare in the gaps between the abodes.
"Only we want you to go about with us, somewhere," said Rollo. "Why, you don't need me to go about with you," said Mr. George. "Contrive some sort of excursion yourself, and take the ladies out and amuse them. You might take them out to see Pozzuoli and the Solfatara. Besides, you would be doing me a great service if you would go." "How?" asked Rollo.
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