| Description | As soon as he saw the recent eruption of Etna he set out and was the first geologist to reach the craters. He went at his own expense. His first report was published in Nature, 6 October 1892. Before the eruption he was studying rock sections with a polarizing microscope and afterwards he was preparing sections of material ejected from the new craters. The mineralogical microscope at the University of Catania is no longer at his disposal, because 'there is somebody there in the university, who does not like to see anybody studying the eruption, and who is very angry with me because I published my report in English language'. He cannot finish his work, including on the basalts of Acicastello, and therefore he asks if the Royal Society would help by giving him a grant from the Donation Fund. In return, he will send the Society a collection of one hundred Sicilian polished ambers. He sends today a series of photographs of the recent eruption of Etna, together with his papers.
Gaetano Platania was awarded a grant, not to exceed £20, from the Royal Society's Donation Fund in April 1893, 'for the purchase of a microscope...in aid of his mineralogical researches'. |