Elba — Chambers's Encyclopaedia

Elba (Gr. Æthalia, Lat. Ilva), an island belonging to Italy, in the Mediterranean Sea, between

A detailed botanical illustration of the Squirting Cucumber (Ecballium Elaterium). The main part of the image shows a plant with large, deeply lobed leaves and a central stem. A large, bulbous fruit is shown breaking away from the stem, with a thick, green, mucus-covered tube (the elaterium) extending from it. To the right, there is a smaller, more detailed drawing of a single, elongated, spiny seed pod (silicle) with a pointed tip. — Squirting Cucumber
(*Ecballium Elaterium*).

Corsica and the coast of Tuscany, from the latter of which it is separated by the channel of Piombino, a strait 6 miles in breadth. Area, 85 sq. m.; pop. (1881) 23,997. The coast is bold and precipitous, the interior traversed nearly throughout by three mountain-ranges which reach a height of 3380 feet. The island is well watered, the climate mild and healthy; on the lower ridges of the mountains, and in the valleys, the vine, olive, and mulberry flourish, fenced in with hedges of cactus and agave. The chief industry is the mining of the rich iron ore, for which Elba has been famed from antiquity; serpentine, and chalk, granite, and marble also are quarried, while considerable salt is produced from the salt-pans along the coast. Much wine is made, and the tunny-fisheries are important. Porto Ferrajo, the capital, has a pop. of 5391. Elba has been rendered famous in history as the place of Napoleon's exile from May 1814 till February 1815.