Vulcanology

From the wikipedia page on Vulcanology. I found this amusing:

Volcanology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Christian mythology


The study of volcanology was not advanced much between the days of Plato and Hutton. The Christian world explained volcanoes by a multitude of prescientific notions, but it was also thought they were the work of Satan or the wrath of God, and only saintly miracles could avert their wrath. For this reason the relics of Saint Agatha were paraded in front of lava advancing on Catania in 253 A.D., and miraculously the lava clove in two (down two valleys) and spared the town. Unfortunately the relics of St. Agatha proved ineffective in 1669, with the loss of much of Catania to Etna's lava.

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