Remarks on Mount Vesuvius, 11 



Abbey has not opened her hallowed recesses to the remains of 

 a man who will ever be deemed one of the finest geniuses of 

 his age, and who had exalted that genius by learning and 

 piety of no ordinary kind. 



Thus neglected and mortified, it is not a matter of sur- 

 prise that this branch of science and of art should seek for 

 shelter in a more hospitable land, and that the pre-eminence 

 which England had so long enjoyed in the manufacture of the 

 achromatic telescope should be transferred to a foreign coun- 

 try. The loss of Fraunhofer holds out to us an opportunity 

 of recovering what we have lost, and we earnestly hope that 

 the Royal Society of London and the Board of Longitude 

 will not allow it to pass. Great Britain has hitherto left the 

 sciences and the arts to the care of individual enterprise, and 

 to the patronage of commercial speculation ; but now, when 

 all Europe has become our rivals, when every sovereign, like 

 the Ptolemies of old, is collecting round his throne, the wis- 

 dom even of foreign states, is it not time that she should 

 start from her lethargy, and endeavour to secure what is yet 

 left ? The British minister who shall first establish a sys- 

 tem of effectual patronage for our arts and sciences, and who 

 shall deliver them from the fatal incubus of our patent laws, 

 will be regarded as the Colbert of his age, and will secure 

 to himself a more glorious renown than he could ever obtain 

 from the highest achievements in legislation or in politics. 



Aet. II. — RemarTcs on Mount Vesuvius. Communicated by 



a CORREoPONDENT. 



Having recently performed two excursions to the summit of 

 Mount Vesuvius, it occurs to me that some of the particulars 

 which I observed may possibly not be very generally known, 

 and consequently thought worthy of a place in the Edinburgh 

 Journal of Science. I shall therefore give an account of my 

 second expedition, adding any particulars which I find in my 

 notes on the first. We left Naples about eleven a. m. and hav- 

 ing arrived at Resina found Salvatore ready to accompany us, 

 we mounted asses, and after a long ride during torrents of 



