120 Report of a Journey .hound the World. 



each morning was carried down stream, to be constantly renewed. 

 At the top of the then existing cone, overtopping considerably the 

 ancient Somma, was a plain on one side of which was the funnel- 

 shaped opening down whose throat nothing could be seen but 

 much heard of the troubled lava. The floor around this pit sounded 

 hollow, and the stream of lava flowing out below seemed nearly 

 on a level with the thumping noises within. 



Today, since the last eruption, all has changed. The top of 

 the cone has disappeared and the truncated summit is occupied 

 by a crater (Fig. 102) much like those left in Halemaumau, of 

 Kilauea, after a descent of the lava. A difference is in the erosion 

 of the Vesuvian walls by heavy downpours of rain. Very slight 

 signs of life remain in this crater; a few feeble jets of steam from 

 the upper walls, hardly noticeable until one's attention is called 

 to them. The old funicular railway was destroyed, and the lava 

 flow divided on the ridge where the observatory is situated, send- 

 ing its rough streams on either side with a warning that another 

 such invasion would overwhelm the useful building. 



With their usual energy Thos. Cook & Son have repaired the 

 damages done to their transportation facilities, and now an electric 

 railway is nearly finished from a station on the road to Pompeii, 

 continued by a new funicular to the summit whence a good path, 

 evidently requiring constant repair when the rains fall on the loose 

 soil, leads around in easy grade the final ascent of the crater rim. 

 Looking across towards Somma the latter crater rim appears higher 

 and more commanding than from the higher cone as it was before 

 the last eruption. It is an easy and much pleasanter ascent than 

 before. Although the day was warm in Naples we had hardly 

 passed through the vineyards where the grapes were coloring, when 

 we caught the cool breezes that were playing around the summit. 



As the object of our visit to Naples was principally to see 

 Mr. F. A. Perret, and to visit Dr. G. Mercalli the Director of the 

 observatory, we now rejoiced to find the latter at his post amid 

 the extensive repairs necessitated by the violence of the late erup- 

 tion, when the brave observers kept there in spite of the lava flows 

 which certainly threatened the obliteration of their stronghold, and 

 the showers of hot ash and sand, not unmixed with masses of larger 

 size which fell upon them until it seemed an almost even chance 



whether stream or shower would accomplish their destruction. 



[268] 



