"Artificis naturæ ingens opus aspice, nulla"Tu tanta humanis rebus spectacula cernes."
"Artificis naturæ ingens opus aspice, nulla"Tu tanta humanis rebus spectacula cernes."
P. Cornelii SeveriÆtna.
Naples, Oct. 17, 1769.
SIR,
Encouraged by the assurances you give me, in your last obliging letter of the 15th of June, that any new communication upon the subject of Volcano's would be received with satisfaction by the Royal Society; I venture to send you the following account of my late observations upon Mount Etna, which you are at liberty to lay before our respectableSociety, should you think it worth its notice. [SeePlate IV.]
Plate IV.A View ofMount Ætnafrom Taormina.
After having examined with much attention the operations of Mount Vesuvius, during the five years that I have had the honour of residing as his Majesty's Minister at this Court, and after having carefully remarked the nature of the soil for fifteen miles round this capital; I am, in my own mind, well convinced that the whole of it has been formed by explosion. Many of the craters, from whence this matter has issued, are still visible; such as the Solfaterra near Puzzole, the lake of Agnano, and near this lake a mountain composed of burnt matter, that has a very large crater surrounded with a wall, to inclose the wild boars and deer, that are kept there for the diversion of his Sicilian Majesty; it is called Astruni: the Monte Nuovo, thrown up from the bottom of the Lucrine lake[17]in the year 1538,which has likewise its crater; and the lake of Averno. The islands of Nisida and Procida are entirely composed of burnt matter; the island of Ischia is likewise composed of lava, pumice, and burnt matter; and there are in that island several visible craters, from one of which, no longer ago than the year 1303, there issued a lava, which ran into the sea, and is still in the same barren state as the modern lavas of Vesuvius. After having, I say, been accustomed to these observations, I was well prepared to visit the most ancient, and perhaps the most considerable, Volcano that exists; and I had the satisfaction of being thoroughly convinced there, of the formation of very considerable mountains by meer explosion, having seen many such on the sides of Etna, as will be related hereafter.
On the 24th of June last, in the afternoon, I left Catania, a town situated at the foot of Mount Etna, or, as it is now called, Mon-Gibello, in company with Lord Fortrose and the Canonico Recupero, an ingenious priest of Catania, who is the only person there that is acquainted with the mountain: he is actually employed in writing its natural history; but, I fear, will not be able to compass so great and useful an undertaking, for want of proper encouragement.
We passed through the inferior district of the mountain, called by its inhabitants La Regione Piemontese. It is well watered, exceedingly fertile, and abounding with vines and other fruit trees, where the lava, or, as it is called there, thesciara, has had time to soften, and gather soil sufficient for vegetation, which, I am convinced from many observations, unless assisted by art, does not come to pass for many ages[18], perhaps a thousand yearsor more; the circuit of this lower region, forming the basis of the great Volcano, is upwards of one hundred Italian miles. The vines of Etna are kept low, quite the reverse of those on the borders of Vesuvius; and they produce a stronger wine, but not in so great abundance. The Piemontese district is covered with towns, villages, monasteries, &c. and is well peopled, notwithstanding the danger of such a situation. Catania, so often destroyed by eruptions of Etna, and totally overthrown by an earthquake towards the endof the last century[19], has been re-built within these fifty years, and is now a considerable town, with at least thirty-five thousand inhabitants. I do not wonder at the seeming security with which these parts are inhabited, having been so long witness to the same near Mount Vesuvius. The operations of Nature are slow: great eruptions do not frequently happen; each flatters himself it will not happen in his time, or, if it should, that his tutelar saint will turn away the destructive lava from his grounds; and indeed the great fertility in the neighbourhoods of Volcanos tempts people to inhabit them.
In about four hours of gradual ascent, we arrived at a little convent of Benedictine monks, called St. Nicolo dell' Arena, about thirteen miles from Catania,and within a mile of the Volcano from whence issued the last very great eruption in the year 1669; a circumstantial account of which was sent to our court by a Lord Winchelsea, who happened to be then at Catania in his way home, from his embassy at Constantinople. His Lordship's account is curious, and was printed in London soon after; I saw a copy of it at Palermo, in the library of the Prince Torremuzzo[20]. We sleptin the Benedictines convent the night of the 24th, and passed the next morning inobserving the ravage made by the abovementioned terrible eruption, over the richcountry of the Piemontese. The lava burst out of a vineyard within a mile ofSt. Nicolo, and, by frequent explosions of stones and ashes, raised there a mountain, which, as near as I can judge, having ascended it, is not less than half a mileperpendicular in height, and is certainly at least three miles in circumference at its basis. The lava that ran from it, and on which there are as yet no signs of vegetation, is fourteen miles in length, and in many parts six in breadth; it reached Catania, and destroyed part of its walls, buried an amphitheatre, an aqueduct, and many other monuments of its ancient grandeur, which till then had resisted the hand of Time, and ran a considerable length into the sea, so as to have once formed a beautiful and safe harbour; but it was soon after filled up by a fresh torrent of the same inflamed matter: a circumstance the Catanians lament to this day, as they are without a port. There has been no such eruption since, though there are signs of many, more terrible, that have preceded it.
For two or three miles round the mountain raised by this eruption, all is barren, and covered with ashes; this ground, as well as the mountain itself, will in timecertainly be as fertile as many other mountains in its neighbourhood, that have been likewise formed by explosion. If the dates of these explosions could be ascertained, it would be very curious, and mark the progress of time with respect to the return of vegetation, as the mountains raised by them are in different states; those which I imagine to be the most modern are covered with ashes only; others of an older date, with small plants and herbs; and the most ancient, with the largest timber-trees I ever saw: but I believe the latter are so very ancient, as to be far out of the reach of history. At the foot of the mountain, raised by the eruption of the year 1669, there is a hole, through which, by means of a rope, we descended into several subterraneous caverns, branching out and extending much farther and deeper than we chose to venture; the cold there being excessive, and a violent wind frequently extinguishing some of our torches. These cavernsundoubtedly contained the lava that issued forth, and extended, as I said before, quite to Catania. There are many of these subterraneous cavities known, on other parts of Etna; such as that called by the peasants La Baracca Vecchia, another La Spelonca della Palomba (from the wild pigeons building their nests therein), and the cavern Thalia, mentioned by Boccaccio. Some of them are made use of as magazines for snow; the whole island of Sicily and Malta being supplied with this essential article (in a hot climate) from Mount Etna. Many more would be found, I dare say, if searched for, particularly near and under the craters from whence great lavas have issued, as the immense quantities of such matter we see above ground, must necessarily suppose very great hollows underneath.
After having passed the morning of the 25th in these observations, we proceeded through the second or middle region ofEtna, called La Selvosa,the woody, than which nothing can be more beautiful. On every side are mountains, or fragments of mountains, that have been thrown up by various ancient explosions; there are some near as high as Mount Vesuvius; one in particular (as the Canon our guide assured me, having measured it) is little less than one mile in perpendicular height, and five in circumference at its basis. They are all more or less covered, even within their craters, as well as the rich vallies between them, with the largest oak, chesnut, and firr trees, I ever saw any where; and indeed it is from hence chiefly, that his Sicilian Majesty's dockyards are supplied with timber. As this part of Etna was famous for its timber in the time of the Tyrants of Syracusa, and as it requires the great length of time I have already mentioned before the matter is fit for vegetation, we may conceive the great age of this respectable Volcano. The chesnut-trees predominated in theparts through which we passed, and, though of a very great size, are not to be compared to some on another part of the Regione Selvosa, called Carpinetto. I have been told by many, and particularly by our guide, who had measured the largest there, called La Castagna Cento Cavalli, that it is upwards of twenty-eight Neapolitan canes in circumference. Now as a Neapolitan cane is two yards and half a quarter, English measure, you may judge, Sir, of the immense size of this famous tree[21]. It is hollow from age, but there is another near it almost as large and sound. As it would have required a journey of two days to have visited this extraordinary tree, and the weather being already very hot, I did not see it. It isamazing to me, that trees should flourish in so shallow a soil; for they cannot penetrate deep without meeting with a rock of lava; and indeed great part of the roots of the large trees we passed by are above ground, and have acquired, by the impression of the air, a bark like that of their branches. In this part of the mountain, are the finest horned cattle in Sicily; we remarked in general, that the horns of the Sicilian cattle are near twice the size of any we had ever seen; the cattle themselves are of the common size. We passed by the lava of the last eruption in the year 1766, which has destroyed above four miles square of the beautiful wood abovementioned. The mountain raised by this eruption abounds with sulphur and salts, exactly resembling those of Vesuvius; specimens of which I sent some time ago to the late Lord Morton.
In about five hours from the time we had left the convent of St. Nicolo dell'Arena, we arrived at the borders of the third region, called La Netta, or Scoperta,cleanoruncovered, where we found a very sharp air indeed; so that, in the same day, the four seasons of the year were sensibly felt by us, on this mountain; excessive summer heats in the Piemontese, spring and autumn temperature in the middle, and extreme cold of winter in the upper region. I could perceive, as we approached the latter, a gradual decrease of vegetation; and from large timber trees we came to the small shrubs and plants of the northern climates: I observed quantities of juniper and tanzey; our guide told us that later in the season there are numberless curious plants here, and that in some parts there are rhubarb and saffron in plenty. In Carrera's History of Catania, there is a list of all the plants and herbs of Etna in alphabetical order.
Night coming on, we here pitched a tent, and made a good fire, which was very necessary; for without it, and very warmcloathing, we should surely have perished with cold; and at one of the clock in the morning of the 26th, we pursued our journey towards the great crater. We passed over vallies of snow, that never melts, except there is an eruption of lava from the upper crater, which scarcely ever happens; the great eruptions are usually from the middle region, the inflamed matter finding (as I suppose) its passage through some weak part, long before it can rise to the excessive height of the upper region, the great mouth on the summit only serving as a common chimney to the Volcano. In many places the snow is covered with a bed of ashes, thrown out of the crater, and the sun melting it in some parts makes this ground treacherous; but as we had with us, besides our guide, a peasant well accustomed to these vallies, we arrived safe at the foot of the little mountain of ashes that crowns Etna, about an hour before the rising of the sun. This mountain is situated in a gently incliningplain of about nine miles in circumference; it is about a quarter of a mile perpendicular in height, very steep, but not quite so steep as Vesuvius; it has been thrown up within these twenty-five or thirty years, as many people at Catania have told me they remembered when there was only a large chasm or crater, in the midst of the abovementioned plain. Till now, the ascent had been so gradual (for the top of Etna is not less than thirty miles from Catania, from whence the ascent begins) as not to have been the least fatiguing; and if it had not been for the snow, we might have rode upon our mules to the very foot of the little mountain, higher than which the Canon our guide had never been: but as I saw that this little mountain was composed in the same manner as the top of Vesuvius, which, notwithstanding the smoak issuing from every pore, is solid and firm, I made no scruple of going up to the edge of the crater; and my companions followed. Thesteep ascent, the keenness of the air, the vapours of the sulphur, and the violence of the wind, which obliged us several times to throw ourselves flat upon our faces to avoid being overturned by it, made this latter part of our expedition rather inconvenient and disagreeable. Our guide, by way of comfort, assured us, that there was generally much more wind in the upper region at this time.
Soon after we had seated ourselves on the highest point of Etna, the sun arose, and displayed a scene that indeed passes all description. The horizon lighting up by degrees, we discovered the greatest part of Calabria, and the sea on the other side of it; the Phare of Messina, the Lipari Islands; Stromboli, with its smoaking top, though at above seventy miles distance, seemed to be just under our feet; we saw the whole island of Sicily, its rivers, towns, harbours, &c. as if we had been looking on a map. The island of Malta is low ground, and there was a hazinessin that part of the horizon, so that we could not discern it; our guide assured us, he had seen it distinctly at other times, which I can believe, as in other parts of the horizon, that were not hazy, we saw to a much greater distance; besides, we had a clear view of Etna's top from our ship, as we were going into the mouth of the harbour of Malta some weeks before; in short, as I have since measured on a good chart, we took in at one view a circle of above nine hundred English miles. The pyramidal shadow of the mountain reached across the whole island, and far into the sea on the other side. I counted from hence forty-four little mountains (little I call them in comparison of their mother Etna, though they would appear great any where else) in the middle region on the Catania side, and many others on the other side of the mountain, all of a conical form, and each having its crater; many with timber trees flourishing both within and without their craters.The points of those mountains that I imagine to be the most ancient are blunted, and the craters of course more extensive and less deep than those of the mountains formed by explosions of a later date, and which preserve their pyramidal form entire. Some have been so far mouldered down by time, as to have no other appearance of a crater than a sort of dimple or hollow on their rounded tops, others with only half or a third part of their cone standing; the parts that are wanting having mouldered down, or perhaps been detached from them by earthquakes, which are here very frequent. All however have been evidently raised by explosion; and I believe, upon examination, many of the whimsical shapes of mountains in other parts of the world would prove to have been occasioned by the same natural operations. I observed that these mountains were generally in lines or ridges; they have mostly a fracture on one side, the same as in the littlemountains raised by explosion on the sides of Vesuvius, of which there are eight or nine. This fracture is occasioned by the lava's forcing its way out, which operation I have described in my account of the last eruption of Vesuvius. Whenever I shall meet with a mountain, in any part of the world, whose form is regularly conical, with a hollow crater on its top, and one side broken, I shall be apt to decide such a mountain's having been formed by an eruption; as both on Etna and Vesuvius the mountains formed by explosion are without exception according to this description. But to return to my narrative.
After having feasted our eyes with the glorious prospect above-mentioned (for which, as Spartian tells us, the Emperor Adrian was at the trouble of ascending Etna), we looked into the great crater, which, as near as we could judge, is about two miles and a half in circumference; we did not think it safe to go round andmeasure it, as some parts seemed to be very tender ground. The inside of the crater, which is incrusted with salts and sulphurs like that of Vesuvius, is in the form of an inverted hollow cone, and its depth nearly answers to the height of the little mountain that crowns the great Volcano. The smoak, issuing abundantly from the sides and bottom, prevented our seeing quite down; but the wind clearing away the smoak from time to time, I saw this inverted cone contracted almost to a point; and, from repeated observations, I dare say, that in all Volcanos, the depth of the craters will be found to correspond nearly to the height of the conical mountains of cinders which usually crown them; in short, I look upon the craters as a sort of suspended funnels, under which are vast caverns and abysses. The formation of such conical mountains with their craters are easily accounted for, by the fall of the stones, cinders, and ashes, emitted at the time of an eruption.
The smoak of Etna, though very sulphureous, did not appear to me so fetid and disagreeable as that of Vesuvius; but our guide told me, that its quality varies, as I know that of Vesuvius does, according to the quality of the matter then in motion within. The air was so very pure and keen in the whole upper region of Etna, and particularly in the most elevated parts of it, that we had a difficulty in respiration, and that, independent of the sulphureous vapour. I brought two barometers and a thermometer with me from Naples, intending to have left one with a person at the foot of the mountain, whilst we made our observation with the other, at sun-rising, on the summit; but one barometer was unluckily spoilt at sea, and I could find no one expert enough at Catania to repair it: what is extraordinary, I do not recollect having seen a barometer in any part of Sicily. At the foot of Etna, the 24th, when we made our first observation, the quicksilverstood at 27 degrees 4 lines; and the 26th, at the most elevated point of the Volcano, it was at 18 degrees 10 lines. The thermometer, on the first observation at the foot of the mountain was at 84 degrees, and on the second at the crater at 56[22]. The weather had not changedin any respect, and was equally fine and clear, the 24th and 26th. We found it difficult to manage our barometer in the extreme cold and high wind on the top of Etna; but, from the most exact observations we could make in our circumstances, the result was as abovementioned. The Canon assured me, that the perpendicular height of Mount Etna is something more than three Italian miles, and I verily believe it is so.
After having passed at least three hours on the crater, we descended, and went to a rising ground, about a mile distant from the upper mountain we had just left, and saw there some remains of the foundation of an ancient building; it is of brick, and seems to have been ornamented with white marble, many fragments of which are scattered about. It is called the Philosopher's Tower, and is said to have beeninhabited by Empedocles. As the ancients used to sacrifice to the celestial gods on the top of Etna[23], it may very well be the ruin of a temple that served for that purpose. From hence we went a little further over the inclined plain abovementioned, and saw the evident marks of a dreadful torrent of hot water, that came out of the great crater at the time of an eruption of lava in the year 1755, and upon which phænomenon the Canonico Recupero, our guide, has published a dissertation. Luckily this torrent did not take its course over the inhabited parts of the mountain; as a like accident on Mount Vesuvius in 1631 swept away some towns and villages in its neighbourhood, with thousands of their inhabitants. The common received opinion is, that theseeruptions of water proceed from the Volcanos having a communication with the sea; but I rather believe them to proceed merely from depositions of rain water in some of the inward cavities of them. We likewise saw from hence the whole course of ancient lava, the most considerable as to its extent of any known here; it ran into the sea near Taormina, which is not less than thirty miles from the crater whence it issued, and is in many parts fifteen miles in breadth. As the lavas of Etna are very commonly fifteen and twenty miles in length, six or seven in breadth, and fifty feet or more in depth; you may judge, Sir, of the prodigious quantities of matter emitted in a great eruption of this mountain, and of the vast cavities there must necessarily be within its bowels. The most extensive lavas of Vesuvius do not exceed seven miles in length. The operations of nature on the one mountain and the other are certainly the same; but on Mount Etna, all are upon a greatscale. As to the nature and quality of their lavas, they are much the same; but I think those of Etna rather blacker, and in general more porous, than those of Vesuvius. In the parts of Etna that we went over, I saw no stratas of pumice stones, which are frequent near Vesuvius, and cover the ancient city of Pompeii; but our guide told us, that there are such in other parts of the mountain. I saw some stratas of what is called heretufa; it is the same that covers Herculaneum, and that composes most of the high grounds about Naples; it is, upon examination, a mixture of small pumice stones, ashes, and fragments of lava, which is by time hardened into a sort of stone[24]. In short, I found, with respect to the matter erupted, nothing on Mount Etna that Vesuvius does not produce; and there certainly is a much greater variety in the erupted matter and lavas of the latter,than of the former; both abound with pyrites and crystallizations, or rather vitrifications. The sea shore at the foot of Etna, indeed, abounds with amber, of which there is none found at the foot of Vesuvius. At present there is a much greater quantity of sulphur and salts on the top of Vesuvius than on that of Etna; but this circumstance varies according to the degree of fermentation within; and our guide assured me, he had seen greater quantities on Etna at other times. In our way back to Catania, the Canon shewed me a little hill, covered with vines, which belonged to the Jesuits, and, as is well attested, was undermined by the lava in the year 1669, and transported half a mile from the place where it stood, without having damaged the vines.
In great eruptions of Etna, the same sort of lightning, as described in my account of the last eruption of Vesuvius, has been frequently seen to issue fromthe smoak of its great crater. The antients took notice of the same phænomenon; for Seneca (lib. ii. Nat. Quæst.) says,—"Ætna aliquando multo igne abundavit, ingentem vim arenæ urentis effudit, involutus est dies pulvere, populosque subita nox terruit,illo tempore aiunt plurima fuisse tonitrua et fulmina."
Till the year 252 of Christ, the chronological accounts of the eruptions of Etna are very imperfect: but as the veil of St. Agatha was in that year first opposed to check the violence of the torrents of lava, and has ever since been produced at the time of great eruptions; the miracles attributed to its influence, having been carefully recorded by the priests, have at least preserved the dates of such eruptions. The relicks of St. Januarius have rendered the same service to the lovers of natural history, by recording the great eruptions of Vesuvius. I find, by the dates of the eruptions of Etna, that it is as irregularand uncertain in its operations as Vesuvius[25]. The last eruption was in 1766.
On our return from Messina to Naples, we were becalmed three days in the midst of the Lipari islands, by which we had an opportunity of seeing that they have all been evidently formed by explosion[26];one of them, called Vulcano, is in the same state as the Solfaterra. Stromboli is a Volcano, existing in all its force, and, in its form of course, is the most pyramidal of all the Lipari Islands; we saw it throw up red hot stones from its crater frequently, and some small streams of lava issued from its side, and ran into the sea[27]. This Volcano differs from Etna and Vesuvius, by its continually emitting fire, and seldom any lava; notwithstanding its continual explosions, this island is inhabited, on one side, by about an hundred families.
Plate V.Stromboli, one of theLipari Islands.
These, as well as I can recollect, are all the observations that I made with respect to Volcanos, in may late curious tour of Sicily; and I shall be very happy should the communication of them afford you, or any of our countrymen (lovers of natural history) satisfaction or entertainment.
I am,Sir,With great regard and esteem,Your most obedienthumble servant,W. Hamilton.
ToMathew Maty, M. D. Secretary to the RoyalSociety.
Remarksupon theNatureof theSoilofNaples, and its Neighbourhood.
"Mille miracula movet saciemque mutat locis, et defert montes, subrigit plana, valles extuberat novas, in profundo insulas eregit."
"Mille miracula movet saciemque mutat locis, et defert montes, subrigit plana, valles extuberat novas, in profundo insulas eregit."
Seneca, De Terra-motu.
Naples, Oct. 16, 1770.
SIR,
According to your desire, I lose no time in sending you such further remarks as I have been making with some diligence, for six years past, in the compass of twenty miles, or more, round this capital. By accompanying these remarks with a map of the country I describe [Plate VI.], and with the specimens of different mattersthat compose the most remarkable spots of it, I do not doubt but that I shall convince you, as I am myself convinced, that the whole circuit (so far as I have examined) within the boundaries marked in the map is wholly and totally the production of subterraneous fires; and that most probably the sea formerly reached the mountains that lie behind Capua and Caserta, and are a continuation of the Appenines. If I may be allowed to compare small things with great, I imagine the subterraneous fires to have worked in this country, under the bottom of the sea, as moles in a field, throwing up here and there a hillock; and that the matter thrown out of some of these hillocks, formed into settled Volcanos, filling up the space between one and the other, has composed this part of the continent, and many of the islands adjoining.
From the observations I have made upon Mount Etna, Vesuvius, and its neighbourhood,I dare say, that, after a careful examination, most mountains, that are or have been Volcanos, would be found to owe their existence to subterraneous fire; the direct reverse of what I find the commonly received opinion.
Nature, though varied, is certainly in general uniform in her operations; and I cannot conceive that two such considerable Volcanos as Etna and Vesuvius should have been formed otherwise than every other considerable Volcano of the known world. I do not wonder that so little progress has been made in the improvement of natural history, and particularly in that branch of it which regards the theory of earth; Nature acts slowly, it is difficult to catch her in the fact. Those who have made this subject their study have, without scruple, undertaken at once to write the natural history of a whole province, or of an entire continent; not reflecting, that the longest life of manscarcely affords him time to give a perfect one of the smallest insect.
I am sensible of what I undertake in giving you, Sir, even a very imperfect account of the nature of the soil of a little more than twenty miles round Naples: yet I flatter myself that my remarks, such as they are, may be of some use to any one hereafter, who may have leisure and inclination to follow them up. The kingdom of the Two Sicilies offers certainly the fairest field for observations of this kind, of any in the whole world; here are Volcanos existing in their full force, some on their decline, and others totally extinct.
To begin with some degree of order, which is really difficult in the variety of matter that occurs to my mind, I will first mention the basis on which I found all my conjectures. It is the nature of the soil that covers the antient towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii, and the interior and exterior form of the new mountain,near Puzzole, with the sort of materials of which it is composed. It cannot be denied, that Herculaneum and Pompeii stood once above ground; though now, the former is in no part less than seventy feet, and in some parts one hundred and twelve feet, below the present surface of the earth; and the latter is buried ten or twelve feet deep, more or less. As we know from the very accurate account given by Pliny the younger to Tacitus, and from the accounts of other contemporary authors, that these towns were buried by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the time of Titus; it must be allowed, that whatever matter lies between these cities and the present surface of the earth over them, must have been produced since the year 79 of the Christian æra, the date of that formidable eruption.
Pompeii, which is situated at a much greater distance from the Volcano than Herculaneum, has felt the effects of a single eruption only; it is covered withwhite pumice stones, mixed with fragments of lava and burnt matter, large and small: the pumice is very light; but I have found some of the fragments of lava and cinders there, weighing eight pounds. I have often wondered, that such weighty bodies could have been carried to such a distance (for Pompeii cannot be less than five miles, in a strait line, from the mouth of Vesuvius). Every observation confirms the fall of this horrid shower over the unfortunate city of Pompeii, and that few of its inhabitants had dared to venture out of their houses; for in many of those which have been already cleared, skeletons have been found, some with gold rings, ear rings, and bracelets. I have been present at the discovery of several human skeletons myself; and under a vaulted arch, about two years ago, at Pompeii, I saw the bones of a man and a horse taken up, with the fragments of the horse's furniture, which had been ornamented with false gems set in bronze. The skulls of someof the skeletons found in the streets had been evidently fractured by the fall of the stones. His Sicilian Majesty's excavations are confined to this spot at present; and the curious in antiquity may expect hereafter, from so rich a mine, ample matter for their dissertations: but I will confine myself to such observations only as relate to my present subject.
Over the stratum of pumice and burnt matter that covers Pompeii, there is a stratum of good mould, of the thickness of about two feet and more in some parts, in which vines flourish, except in some particular spots of this vineyard, where they are subject to be blasted by a foul vapour, ormofete, as it is called here, that rises from beneath the burnt matter. The abovementioned shower of pumice stones, according to my observations, extended beyond Castel-a-mare (near which spot the ancient town of Stabia also lies buried under them) and covered a tract of country not less than thirty miles in circumference.It was at Stabia that Pliny the elder lost his life, and this shower of pumice stones is well described in the younger Pliny's letter. Little of the matter that has issued from Vesuvius since that time, has reached these parts: but I must observe, that the pavement of the streets of Pompeii is of lava; nay, under the foundation of the town, there is a deep stratum of lava and burnt matter. These circumstances, with many others that will be related hereafter, prove, beyond a doubt, that there have been eruptions of Vesuvius previous to that of the year 79, which is the first recorded by history.
The growth of soil by time is easily accounted for; and who, that has visited ruins of ancient edifices, has not often seen a flourishing shrub, in a good soil, upon the top of an old wall? I have remarked many such on the most considerable ruins at Rome and elsewhere. But from the soil which has grown over the barren pumice that covers Pompeii, I was enabled to makea curious observation. Upon examining the cuts and hollow ways made by currents of water in the neighbourhood of Vesuvius and of other Volcanos, I had remarked that there lay frequently a stratum of rich soil, of more or less depth, between the matter produced by the explosion of succeeding eruptions[28]; and I was naturally led to think, that such a stratum had grown in the same manner as the one abovementioned over the pumice of Pompeii. Where the stratum of good soil was thick, it was evident to me that many years had elapsed between one eruption and that which succeeded it. I do not pretend to say, that a just estimate can be formed of the great age of Volcanos fromthis observation; but some sort of calculation might be made: for instance, should an explosion of pumice cover again the spot under which Pompeii is buried, the stratum of rich soil abovementioned would certainly lie between two beds of pumice; and if a like accident had happened a thousand years ago, the stratum of rich soil would as certainly have wanted much of its present thickness, as the rotting of vegetables, manure, &c. is ever increasing a cultivated soil. Whenever I find then a succession of different strata of pumice and burnt matter, like that which covers Pompeii, intermixed with strata of rich soil, of greater or less depth, I hope I may be allowed reasonably to conclude, that the whole has been the production of a long series of eruptions, occasioned by subterraneous fire. By the size and weight of the pumice, and fragments of burnt erupted matter in these strata, it is easy to trace them up to their source, which I have done more than once in the neighbourhoodof Puzzole, where explosions have been frequent. The gradual decrease in the size and quantity of the erupted matter in the stratum abovementioned, from Pompeii to Castle-a-Mare, is very visible: at Pompeii, as I said before, I have found them of eight pounds weight, when at Castle-a-Mare the largest do not weigh an ounce.
The matter which covers the ancient town of Herculaneum is not the produce of one eruption only; for there are evident marks that the matter of six eruptions has taken its course over that which lies immediately above the town, and was the cause of its destruction. These strata are either of lava or burnt matter, with veins of good soil between them. The stratum of erupted matter that immediately covers the town, and with which the theatre and most of the houses were filled, is not of that foul vitrified matter, called lava, but of a sort of soft stone, composed of pumice, ashes, and burnt matter. It is exactly ofthe same nature with what is called here the Naples stone; the Italians distinguish it by the name oftufa, and it is in general use for building. Its colour is usually that of our free stone, but sometimes tinged with grey, green, and yellow; and the pumice stones, with which it ever abounds, are sometimes large, and sometimes small: it varies likewise in its degree of solidity.
The chief article in the composition oftufaseems to me to be, that fine burnt material, which is calledpuzzolane, whose binding quality and utility by way of cement are mentioned by Vitruvius[29], andwhich is to be met with only in countries that have been subject to subterraneousfires. It is, I believe, a sort of lime prepared by nature. This, mixed with water, great or small pumice stones, fragments of lava, and burnt matter, may naturally be supposed to harden into a stone of this kind[30]; and, as water frequently attends eruptions of fire, as will be seen in the accounts I shall give of the formation of the new mountain near Puzzole, I am convincedthe first matter that issued from Vesuvius, and covered Herculaneum, was in the state of liquid mud. A circumstance strongly favouring my opinion is, that, about two years ago, I saw the head of an antique statue dug out of this matter within the theatre of Herculaneum; the impression of its face remains to this day in thetufa, and might serve as a mould for a cast in plaister of Paris, being as perfect as any mould I ever saw. As much may be inferred from the exact resemblance of this matter, ortufa, which immediately covers Herculaneum, to all thetufasof which the high grounds of Naples and its neighbourhood are composed. I detached a piece of it sticking to, and incorporated with, the painted stucco of the inside of the theatre of Herculaneum, and shall send it for your inspection[31]. It is very different, as you will see, from the vitrifiedmatter called lava, by which it has been generally thought that Herculaneum was destroyed. The village of Resina and some villas stand at present above this unfortunate town.
To account for the very great difference of the matters that cover Herculaneum and Pompeii, I have often thought that, in the eruption of 79, the mountain must have been open in more than one place. A passage in Pliny's letter to Tacitus seems to say as much: "Interim è Vesuvio monte pluribus locis latissimæ flammæ, atque incendia relucebant, quorum fulgor et claritas tenebras noctis pellebat:" so that very probably the matter that covers Pompeii proceeded from a mouth, or crater, much nearer to it than is the great mouth of the Volcano, from whence came the matter that covers Herculaneum. This matter might nevertheless be said to have proceeded from Vesuvius, just as the eruption in the year 1760, which was quite independent of the great crater (being fourmiles from it), is properly called an eruption of Vesuvius.
In the beginning of eruptions, Volcanos frequently throw up water mixed with the ashes. Vesuvius did so in the eruption of 1631, according to the testimony of many contemporary writers. The same circumstance happened in 1669, according to the account of Ignazzio Sorrentino, who, by his history of Mount Vesuvius, printed at Naples in 1734, has shewn himself to have been a very accurate observer of the phænomena of the Volcano, for many years that he lived at Torre del Greco, situated at the foot of it. At the beginning of the formation of the new mountain, near Puzzole, water was mixed with the ashes thrown up, as will be seen in two very curious and particular accounts of the formation of that mountain, which I shall have the pleasure of communicating to you presently; and in 1755, Etna threw up a quantity of water in the beginning of an eruption, as is mentionedin the letter I sent you last year upon the subject of that magnificent Volcano[32]. Ulloa likewise mentions this circumstance of water attending the eruptions of Volcanos in America. Whenever therefore I find atufacomposed exactly like that which immediately covers Herculaneum, and undoubtedly proceeded from Vesuvius, I conclude such atufato have been produced by water mixing with the erupted matter at the time of an explosion occasioned by subterraneous fire; and this observation, I believe, will be of more use than any other, in pointing out those parts of the presentterra firma, that have been formed by explosion. I am convinced, it has often happened that subterraneous fires and exhalations, after having been pent up and confined for some time, and been the cause of earthquakes, have forced their passage, and in venting themselves formed mountains of the matter that confined them, as you will see was the casenear Puzzole in the year 1538, and by evident signs has been so before, in many parts of the neighbourhood of Puzzole; without creating a regular Volcano. The materials of such mountains will have but little appearance of having been produced by fire, to any one unaccustomed to make observations upon the different nature of Volcanos.
If it were allowed to make a comparison between the earth and a human body, one might consider a country replete with combustibles occasioning explosions (which is surely the case here) to be like a body full of humours. When these humours concentre in one part, and form a great tumour out of which they are discharged freely, the body is less agitated; but when, by any accident, the humours are checked, and do not find free passage through their usual channel, the body is agitated, and tumours appear in other parts of that body, but soon after the humours return again to their former channel. In a similar mannerone may conceive Vesuvius to be the present great channel, through which nature discharges some of the foul humours of the earth: when these humours are checked by any accident or stoppage in this channel for any considerable time, earthquakes will be frequent in its neighbourhood, and explosions may be apprehended even at some distance from it. This was the case in the year 1538, Vesuvius having been quiet for near 400 years. There was no eruption from its great crater, from the year 1139 to the great eruption of 1631, and the top of the mountain began to lose all signs of fire. As it is not foreign to my purpose, and will serve to shew how greatly they are mistaken, who place the seat of the fire in the centre, or towards the top, of a Volcano; I will give you a curious description of the state of the crater of Vesuvius, after having been free from eruption 492 years, as related by Bracini, who descended into it not long before the eruption of1631: "The crater was five miles in circumference, and about a thousand paces deep; its sides were covered with brush wood, and at the bottom there was a plain on which cattle grazed. In the woody parts, boars frequently harboured; in the midst of the plain, within the crater, was a narrow passage, through which, by a winding path, you could descend about a mile amongst rocks and stones, till you came to another more spacious plain covered with ashes: in this plain were three little pools, placed in a triangular form, one towards the East, of hot water, corrosive and bitter beyond measure; another towards the West, of water salter than that of the sea; the third of hot water, that had no particular taste."
The great increase of the cone of Vesuvius, from that time to this, naturally induces one to conclude, that the whole of the cone was raised in the like manner; and that the part of Vesuvius, calledSomma, which is now considered as a distinct mountain from it, was composed in the same manner. This may plainly be perceived, by examining its interior and exterior form, and the strata of lava and burnt matter of which it is composed. The ancients, in describing Vesuvius, never mention two mountains. Strabo, Dio, Vitruvius, all agree, that Vesuvius, in their time, shewed signs of having formerly erupted[33], and the first compares thecrater on its top to an amphitheatre. The mountain now called Somma was, I believe, that which the ancients called Vesuvius: its outside form is conical; its inside, instead of an amphitheatre, is now like a great theatre. I suppose the eruption in Pliny's time to have thrown down that part of the cone next the sea, which would naturally have left it in its present state; and that the conical mountain, or existing Vesuvius, has been raised by the succeeding eruptions: all my observations confirm this opinion. I have seen antient lavas in the plain on the other side of Somma, which could never have proceeded from the present Vesuvius. Serao, a celebrated physician now living at Naples,in the introduction of his account of the eruption of Vesuvius in 1737 (in which account many of the phænomena of the Volcano are recorded and very well accounted for), says, that at the convent of Dominican Fryars, called the Madona del Arco, some years ago, in sinking a well, at a hundred feet depth, a lava was discovered, and soon after another; so that, in less than three hundred feet depth, the lavas of four eruptions were found. From the situation of this convent, it is clear beyond a doubt, that these lavas proceeded from the mountain called Somma, as they are quite out of the reach of the existing Volcano.
From these circumstances, and from repeated observations I have made in the neighbourhood of Vesuvius, I am sure that no virgin soil is to be found there, and that all is composed of different strata of erupted matter, even to a great depth below the level of the sea. In short, I have not any doubt in my own mind, but that this Volcanotook its rise from the bottom of the sea; and as the whole plain between Vesuvius and the mountains behind Caserta, which is the best part of the Campagna Felice, is (under its good soil) composed of burnt matter, I imagine the sea to have washed the feet of those mountains, until the subterraneous fires began to operate, at a period certainly of a most remote antiquity.
The soil of the Campagna Felice is very fertile; I saw the earth opened in many places last year in the midst of that plain, when they were seeking for materials to mend the road from Naples to Caserta. The stratum of good soil was in general four or five feet thick; under which was a deep stratum of cinders, pumice, fragments of lava, and such burnt matter as abounds near Vesuvius and all Volcanos. The mountains at the back of Caserta are mostly of a sort of lime-stone, and very different from those formed by fire; though Signior Van Vitelli, the celebrated architect,has assured me, that, in the cutting of the famous aqueduct of Caserta through these mountains, he met with some soils, that had been evidently formed by subterraneous fire. The high grounds, which extend from Castel-a-Mare, to the point of Minerva towards the island of Caprea, and from the promontory that divides the bay of Naples from that of Salerno, are of lime-stone. The plain of Sorrento, that is bounded by these high grounds, beginning at the village of Vico, and ending at that of Massa, is wholly composed of the same sort oftufaas that about Naples, except that the cinders or pumice stones intermixed in it are larger than in the Naplestufa. I conceive then that there has been an explosion in this spot from the bottom of the sea. This plain, as I have remarked to be the case with all soils produced by subterraneous fire, is extremely fertile; whilst the ground about it, being of another nature, is not so. The island of Caprea does not shew any signs of havingbeen formed by subterraneous fire; but is of the same nature as the high grounds last mentioned, from which it has been probably detached by earthquakes, or the violence of the waves. Rovigliano, an island, or rather a rock, in the bay of Castel-a-Mare, is likewise of lime-stone, and seems to have belonged to the original mountains in its neighbourhood: in some of these mountains there are also petrified fish and fossil shells, which I never have found in the mountains which I suppose to have been formed by explosion[34].
You have now, Sir, before you the nature of the soil, from Caprea to Naples. The soil on which this great metropolis stands has been evidently produced by explosions,some of which seem to have been upon the very spot on which this city is built; all the high grounds round Naples, Pausilipo, Puzzole, Baïa, Misenum, the islands of Procita and Ischia, appear to have been raised by explosion. You can trace still in many of these heights the conical shape that was naturally given them at first, and even the craters out of which the matter issued, though to be sure others of these heights have suffered such changes by the hand of time, that you can only conjecture that they were raised in the like manner, by their composition being exactly the same as that of those mountains which still retain their conical form and craters entire. Atufa, exactly resembling the specimen I took from the inside of the theatre of Herculaneum, layers of pumice intermixed with layers of good soil, just like those over Pompeii, and lavas like those of Vesuvius, compose the whole soil of the country that remains to be described.
The famous grotto anciently cut through the mountain of Pausilipo, to make a road from Naples to Puzzole, gives you an opportunity of seeing that the whole of that mountain istufa. The first evident crater you meet with, after you have passed the grotto of Pausilipo, is now the lake of Agnano; a small remain of the subterraneous fire (which must probably have made the bason for the lake, and raised the high grounds which form a sort of amphitheatre round it) serves to heat rooms, which the Neapolitans make great use of in summer, for carrying off diverse disorders, by a strong perspiration. This place is called the Sudatorio di San Germano; near the present bagnios, which are but poor little hovels, there are the ruins of a magnificent ancient bath. About an hundred paces from hence is the Grotto del Cane; I shall only mention, as a further proof of the probability that the lake of Agnano was a Volcano, that vapours of a pernicious quality, as that in the Grottodel Cane, are frequently met with in the neighbourhood of Etna and Vesuvius, particularly at the time of, before, and after, great eruptions. The noxious vapour having continued in the same force constantly so many ages, as it has done in the Grotto del Cane (for Pliny mentions this Grotto[35]), is indeed a circumstance in which it differs from the vapours near Vesuvius and Etna, which are not constant. The cone forming the outside of this supposed Volcano is still perfect in many parts.
Opposite to the Grotto del Cane, and immediately joining to the lake, rises themountain called Astruni, which, having, as I imagine, been thrown up by an explosion of a much later date, retains the conical shape and every symptom of a Volcano in much greater perfection than that I have been describing. The crater of Astruni is surrounded with a wall, to confine boars and deers (this Volcano having been for many years converted to a royal chace). It may be about six miles or more in circumference: in the plain at the bottom of the crater are two lakes; and in some books there is mention made of a hot spring, which I never have been able to find. There are many huge rocks of lava within the crater of Astruni, and some I have met with also in that of Agnano; the cones of both these supposed Volcanos are composed oftufaand strata of loose pumice, fragments of lava and other burnt matter, exactly resembling the strata of Vesuvius. Bartholomeus Fatius, who wrote of the actions of King Alphonso the First (before the new mountain had been formednear Puzzole), conjectured that Astruni had been a Volcano. These are his words: "Locus Neapoli quatuor millia passuum proximus, quem vulgo Listrones vocant, nos unum è Phlegræis Campis ab ardore nuncupandum putamus." There is no entrance into the crater of either Astruni or Agnano, except one, evidently made by art, and they both exactly correspond with Strabo's description of Avernus; the same may be said of the Solfaterra and the Monte Gauro, or Barbaro as it is sometimes called, which I shall describe presently.
Near Astruni and towards the sea rises the Solfaterra, which not only retains its cone and crater, but much of its former heat. In the plain within the crater, smoak issues from many parts, as also from its sides; here, by means of stones and tiles heaped over the crevices through which the smoak passes, they collect in an aukward manner what they callsale armoniaco; and from the sand of the plain theyextract sulphur and alum. This spot, well attended to, might certainly produce a good revenue, whereas I doubt if they have hitherto ever cleared 200l.a year by it. The hollow sound produced by throwing a heavy stone on the plain of the crater of the Solfaterra seems to indicate, that it is supported by a sort of arched natural vault; and one is induced to think that there is a pool of water beneath this vault (which boils by the heat of a subterraneous fire still deeper), by the very moist steam that issues from the cracks in the plain of the Solfaterra, which, like that of boiling water, runs off a sword or knife, presented to it, in great drops. On the outside, and at the foot of the cone of the Solfaterra, towards the lake of Agnano, water rushes out of the rocks, so hot, as to raise the quicksilver in Fahrenheit's thermometer to the degree of boiling water[36],a fact of which I was myself an eye-witness. This place, well worthy the observation of the curious, has been taken little notice of; it is called thePisciarelli. The common people of Naples have great faith in the efficacy of this water; and make much use of it in all cutaneous disorders, as well as for another disorder that prevails here. It seems to be impregnated chiefly with sulphur and alum. When you approach your ear to the rocks of the Pisciarelli, from whence this water ouzes, you hear a horrid boiling noise, which seems to proceed from the huge cauldron, that may be supposed to be under the plain of the Solfaterra. On the other side of the Solfaterra, next the sea, there is a rock, which has communicated with the sea, till part of it was cut away to make the road to Puzzole; this was undoubtedly a considerablelava, that ran from the Solfaterra when it was an active Volcano. Under this rock of lava, which is more than seventy feet high, there is a stratum of pumice and ashes. This ancient lava is about a quarter of a mile broad; you meet with it abruptly before you come in sight of Puzzole, and it finishes as abruptly within about an hundred paces of the town. I have often thought that many quarries of stone, upon examination, would be found to owe their origin to the same cause, though time may have effaced all signs of the Volcano from whence they proceeded. Except this rock, which is evidently lava and full of vitrifications like that of Vesuvius, all the rocks upon the coast of Baïa are oftufa.
I have observed in the lava of Vesuvius and Etna, as in this, that the bottom, as well as the surface of it, was rough and porous, like the cinders or scoriæ from an iron foundery; and that for about a foot from the surface and from the bottom,they were not near so solid and compact as towards the centre; which must undoubtedly proceed from the impression of the air upon the vitrified matter whilst in fusion. I mention this circumstance, as it may serve to point out true lavas with more certainty. The ancient name of the Solfaterra was,Forum Vulcani; a strong proof of its origin from subterraneous fire. The degree of heat, that the Solfaterra has preserved for so many ages, seems to have calcined the stones upon its cone, and in its crater, as they are very white, and crumble easily in the hottest parts.
We come next to the new mountain near Puzzole, which, being of so very late a formation, preserves its conical shape entire, and produces as yet but a very slender vegetation. It has a crater almost as deep as the cone is high, which may be near a quarter of a mile perpendicular, and is in shape a regular inverted cone. At the basis of this new mountain (which is more than three miles in circumference), thesand upon the sea shore, and even that which is washed by the sea itself, is burning hot for above the space of an hundred yards; if you take up a handful of the sand below water, you are obliged to get rid of it directly, on account of its intense heat.
I had been long very desirous of meeting with a good account of the formation of this new mountain, because, proving this mountain to have been raised by mere explosion in a plain, would prove at the same time, that all the neighbouring mountains, which are composed of the same materials, and have exactly or in part the same form, were raised in the like manner; and that the seat of fire, the cause of these explosions, lies deep; which I have every reason to think.
Fortunately, I lately found two very good accounts of the phænomena that attended the explosion, which formed the new mountain, published a few months after the event. As I think them very curious,and greatly to my purpose, and as they are rare, I will give you a literal translation of such extracts as relate to the formation of the Monte Nuovo. They are bound in one volume[37].
The title of the first is,Dell Incendio di Pozzuolo, Marco Antonio delli Falconi all Illustrissima Signiora Marchesa della Padula nel MDXXXVIII.
At the head of the second is,Ragionamento del Terremoto, del Nuovo Monte, del Aprimento di Terra in Pozzuolo nell' Anno 1538, é della significatione d'essi. Per Piero Giacomo da Toledo; and at the end of the book,Stampata in Nap. per Giovanni Sulztbach Alemano, a 22di Genaro 1539, con gratia, é privilegio.
"First then (says Marco Antonio delli Falconi), will I relate simply and exactly the operations of nature, of which I was either myself an eye-witness, or as they were related to me by those who hadbeen witnesses of them. It is now two years that there have been frequent earthquakes at Pozzuolo, at Naples, and the neighbouring parts; on the day and in the night before the appearance of this eruption, above twenty shocks great and small were felt at the abovementioned places. The eruption made its appearance the 29th of September 1538, the feast of St. Michael the angel; it was on a Sunday, about an hour in the night; and, as I have been informed, they began to see on that spot, between the hot baths or sweating rooms, and Trepergule, flames of fire, which first made their appearance at the baths, then extended towards Trepergule, and fixing in the little valley that lies between the Monte Barbaro and the hillock called del Pericolo (which was the road to the lake of Avernus and the baths), in a short time the fire increased to such a degree, that it burst open the earth in this place, and threwup so great a quantity of ashes and pumice stones mixed with water, as covered the whole country; and in Naples a shower of these ashes and water fell a great part of the night. The next morning, which was Monday, and the last of the month, the poor inhabitants of Pozzuolo, struck with so horrible a sight, quitted their habitations, covered with that muddy and black shower, which continued in that country the whole day, flying death, but with faces painted with its colours; some with their children in their arms, some with sacks full of their goods; others leading an ass, loaded with their frightened family, towards Naples; others carrying quantities of birds of various sorts, that had fallen dead at the time the eruption began; others again with fish which they had found, and were to be met with in plenty upon the shore, the sea having been at that time considerably dried up. Don Pedro di Toledo, Viceroyof the kingdom, with many gentlemen, went to see so wonderful an appearance; I also, having met with the most honourable and incomparable gentleman, Signior Fabritio Moramaldo, on the road, went and saw the eruption and the many wonderful effects of it. The sea towards Baïa had retired a considerable way; though, from the quantity of ashes and broken pumice stones thrown up by the eruption, it appeared almost totally dry. I saw likewise two springs in those lately-discovered ruins, one before the house that was the Queen's, of hot and salt water; the other of fresh and cold water, on the shore, about 250 paces nearer to the eruption: some say, that, still nearer to the spot where the eruption happened, a stream of fresh water issued forth like a little river. Turning towards the place of the eruption, you saw mountains of smoak, part of which was very black and part very white,rise up to a great height; and in the midst of the smoak, at times, deep-coloured flames burst forth with huge stones and ashes, and you heard a noise like the discharge of a number of great artillery. It appeared to me as if Typheus and Enceladus from Ischia and Etna with innumerable giants, or those from the Campi Phlegrei (which, according to the opinions of some, were situated in this neighbourhood), were come to wage war again with Jupiter. The natural historians may perhaps reasonably say, that the wise poets meant no more by giants, than exhalations, shut up in the bowels of the earth, which, not finding a free passage, open one by their own force and impulse, and form mountains, as those which occasioned this eruption have been seen to do; and methought I saw those torrents of burning smoak that Pindar describes in an eruption of Etna, now called Mon Gibello, in Sicily; in imitation ofwhich, as some say, Virgil wrote these lines:
"Ipse sed horrificis juxta tonat Ætna ruinis, &c.
"Ipse sed horrificis juxta tonat Ætna ruinis, &c.
"After the stones and ashes with clouds of thick smoak had been sent up, by the impulse of the fire and windy exhalation (as you see in a great cauldron that boils), into the middle region of the air, overcome by their own natural weight, when from distance the strength they had received from impulse was spent, rejected likewise by the cold and unfriendly region, you saw them fall thick, and, by degrees, the condensed smoak clear away, raining ashes with water and stones of different sizes, according to the distance from the place: then, by degrees, with the same noise and smoak, it threw out stones and ashes again, and so on by fits. This continued two days and nights, when the smoak and force of the fire began to abate. The fourth day, which wasThursday, at 22 o'clock, there was so great an eruption, that, as I was in the gulph of Puzzole, coming from Ischia, and not far from Misenum, I saw, in a short time, many columns of smoak shoot up, with the most terrible noise I ever heard, and, bending over the sea, came near our boat, which was four miles or more from the place of their birth; and the quantity of ashes, stones, and smoak, seemed as if they would cover the whole earth and sea. Stones, great and small, and ashes more or less, according to the impulse of the fire and exhalations, began to fall, so that a great part of this country was covered with ashes; and many, that have seen it, say, they reached the vale of Diana, and some parts of Calabria, which are more than 150 miles from Pozzuolo. The Friday and Saturday nothing but a little smoak appeared; so that many, taking courage, went upon the spot, and say, that with the stones and ashesthrown up, a mountain has been formed in that valley, not less than three miles in circumference, and almost as high as the Monte Barbaro, which is near it, covering the Canettaria, the castle of Trepergule, all those buildings and the greatest part of the baths that were about them; extending South towards the sea, North as far as the lake of Avernus, West to the Sudatory, and joining East to the foot of the Monte Barbaro; so that this place has changed its form and face in such a manner as not to be known again: a thing almost incredible, to those who have not seen it, that in so short a time so considerable a mountain could have been formed. On its summit there is a mouth in the form of a cup, which may be a quarter of a mile in circumference, though some say it is as large as our market-place at Naples, from which there issues a constant smoak; and though I have seen it only at a distance,it appears very great. The Sunday following, which was the 6th of October, many people going to see this phænomenon, and some having ascended half the mountain, others more, about 22 o'clock there happened so sudden and horrid an eruption, with so great a smoak, that many of these people were stifled, some of which could never be found. I have been told, that the number of the dead or lost amounted to twenty-four. From that time to this, nothing remarkable happened; it seems as if the eruption returned periodically, like the ague or gout. I believe henceforward it will not have such force, though the eruption of the Sunday was accompanied with showers of ashes and water, which fell at Naples, and were seen to extend as far as the mountain of Somma, called Vesuvius by the ancients; and, as I have often remarked, the clouds of smoak proceeding from the eruption moved in a direct linetowards that mountain, as if these places had a correspondence and connection one with the other. In the night, many beams and columns of fire were seen to proceed from this eruption, and some like flashes of lightning[38]. We have then, many circumstances for our observation, the earthquakes, the eruption, the drying up of the sea, the quantity of dead fish and birds, the birth of springs, the shower of ashes with water and without water, the innumerable trees in that whole country, as far as the Grotto of Lucullus, torn from their roots, thrown down, and covered with ashes, that it gave one pain to see them: and as all these effects were produced by the same cause that produces earthquakes; let us first enquire how earthquakes are produced, and from thence we may easily comprehend the cause of the abovementioned events." Thenfollows a dissertation on earthquakes, and some curious conjectures relative to the phænomena which attended this eruption, clearly and well expressed, considering, as the author himself apologizes, that at that time the Italian language had been little employed on such subjects.