No Yl.^^District of the Bay ofBaja. "77 



more interesting as being one of those rare occurrences which 

 connect the past with the present, and convince us of the real 

 energies of nature, excited in a manner which the ocular testi- 

 mony of geological facts show must have been much more fre- 

 quent on the surface of our globe ; and by elevating our ideas 

 of the real vastness of the scale of nature's operations, when 

 she occasionally astonishes the inhabitants of this now peace- 

 ful earth, exhibiting so many testimonies of a less qui- 

 escent state, teaches us to enlarge our conceptions of her em- 

 bowelled agencies, and gives us some data for the assumption 

 of hypotheses, which would otherwise be groundless and fan- 

 tastic. 



This new mountain appeared on the 29th of September 

 1538, and the following details of this remarkable phenome- 

 non are drawn from contemporary or immediately succeeding 

 writers *. The neighbourhood of Pozzuoli had for two years 

 previously been perpetually disturbed by earthquakes, but 

 they only became alarming on the 27th and 28th of Septem- 

 ber 1538, when not less than twenty shocks were experienced 

 in twenty-four hours. At length, between one and two hours 

 of the night (counted from half an hour after sunset) of the 

 29th, symptoms of a more unprecedented phenomenon mani- 

 fested themselves ; a gulf opened between the little town of 

 Tripergola which once existed on the site of the Monte Nuovo, 

 and the Baths, for which it was much frequented. This vil- 

 lage was of considerable size ; it contained a hospital for 

 those who resorted thither for the benefit of the thermal springs, 

 and we find it recorded by an eye-witness of the catastrophe, 

 that it had no fewer than three inns in the principal street. 

 The crack in the earth approached the town with a tremen- 

 dous noise and began to discharge pumice stones, blocks of 

 unmelted lava and ashes, mixed with water, and occasionally 

 flames burst forth. The ashes fell in immense quantities at 

 Naples, and Pozzuoli was deserted by its inhabitants ; indeed 

 the shower extended to a distance of thirty miles, and it has 

 even been alleged that there were traces of it in Calabria, 150 



* Falconi, DeW Incendio di Pozzuoli, SiC. 1538. — Toledo, liaa-tona- 

 mento del TerTumoto del Nunvo Monte. Napoli Genn. 1639. — And the 

 authorities quoted in the old works of Capaccio and Sarnclli. 



