THE 



QUARTERLY JOURNAL, 



July, 1823. 



Art. I. An Account of the Eruption of Vesuvius^ in 



October, 1822, By G. Poulett Scrope, Esq. 



[With a Plate.] 



Naples, March 10, 1823. 

 felNCE the end of the last century the great crater of 

 Vesuvius has been gradually filled by the accumulation both 

 of lava boiling up from below, and of scoriae falling from the 

 explosions of the different minor mouths which were formed at 

 intervals during the last twenty years on its bottom and sides. 

 When I visited the mountain in 1818-19, this great crater was 

 almost entirely obliterated ;— no regular concavity appeared, 

 but in its place a rough and rocky plain, rising into two rude 

 eminences at the northern and southern extremities, covered 

 with blocks of lava and scoriae, and cut up by numerous fissures, 

 from many of which clouds of vapours were evolved in consi- 

 derable quantities. By the eruption of last October this state 

 of things has been totally changed. The explosions which 

 then, during the space of more than twenty days, were inces- 

 santly and with terrific violence taking place from the focus of 

 the volcano, broke up and threw out all this accumulated 

 mass, and ended by completely gutting the mountain, so as to 

 leave an immense gulf or chasm of an irregular and some- 

 what elliptical shape, about three miles in circumference if mea- 

 sured along the very sinuous and irregular line of its extreme 

 Vol. XV. N 



