Marsh.] ^26 [^'^y- 



ceased to be fluid long before it readied tlie valley between 

 Vesuvius and Soma, into which it was running. But it did not 

 therefore stop, but pushed itself along in a most singular way. 



" Imagine the side of a pile of coal or coke all on fire, with 

 a front several hundred feet long, and twelve or fifteen feet 

 high, moving forward about a hundred feet an hour, and 3'ou 

 will have a pretty correct idea of its appearance. 



" It was generally very much broken up, but sometimes red- 

 hot masses, several feet in diameter, would roll out and down 

 the steep front of the advancing pile, as if pushed by some ir- 

 resistible power behind. 



" After dark, the whole stream, more than half a mile in 

 length, was very brilliant ; and the crater threw up, every few 

 seconds, a perfect shower of stones hundreds of feet into the 

 air, looking like so many meteorites or Roman candles. 



" The next day, in company with Pemberton Smith, I went 

 again to the same place. The spot where we had tied our 

 horses the evening before, was entirely covered with broken 

 lava, but the stream had ceased to flow. The crater, however, 

 was still active ; and we could see, by the steam down the 

 sides of the mountain, that other streams had broken out. 



" The climb up the ' Great Cone,' which is very much like 

 the steep side of a pile of coke and ashes, and which, when 

 you take a step, often gives way and slides down with you, is 

 exceedingly laborious. 



" The wind, too, blew a gale, bringing with it, as we neared 

 the top, volumes of smoke from the flowing streams of lava to 

 our left. We saw snow among the stones, and the wind was 

 icy cold, so that I wore my overcoat all the time, and the 

 guide carried a rug for me to wrap up in when I reached the 

 summit. But I had no use for it there, having come near 

 enough to the flowing lava to quite change the temperature. 



" When some hundred yards from the base of the crater, we 

 stopped and sat down to watch the way in which the stones 

 were thrown up into the air, 



" It seemed as though the whole mountain was convulsed by 

 a fit of coughing, half strangled by something in its throat, or, 

 as we remarked at the time, ' had the heaves.' 



" The coughs came sometimes in quick succession, ten or 

 twenty in a minute. At other times the intervals were from 

 half a minute to a minute. 



