178 Account of the Eruption of Vesuvius, 



the rugged and fractured cliffs that frown around it; their 

 gloomy colouring, and calcined aspect ; the dense sulphureous 

 vapours that rise from fissures on every side ; together with 

 the thundering echoes which almost at every minute proclaim 

 the fall of some fragments detached from the sides into the 

 abyss below ; create a sense of grandeur and awe, too impres- 

 sive to be easily effaced. The great crater of iEtna, even if 

 larger, which I much doubt, is in my opinion by no means so 

 striking. Time and the meteoric agents have considerably 

 softened the features of this last scene, while there is a vivid 

 and terrible freshness in the crater of Vesuvius ; the wound 

 which has been torn through the bowels of the mountain is as 

 yet raw and unhealed ; and the imagination forcibly recurs to 

 that powerful demonstration of the energies of Nature in all 

 their violence, which so lately was exhibited from this spot, 

 and which is liable to re-commence at the instant. 



Viewed from a distance, the crater still appears to emit at 

 all times a considerable quantity of smoke, which increases 

 prodigiously during stormy weather. However, on attain- 

 ing the summit of the cone, it becomes evident that little or no 

 vapour rises from the concealed vent of the volcanic focus at 

 the bottom of the basin. Thick clouds, on the contrary, take 

 their rise just within the margin of the crater, evolving them- 

 selves from fissures in the broken extremities of those currents 

 of lava which were produced by the last eruption, and which 

 without doubt are still at an extremely high temperature, pro- 

 bably, indeed, incandescent and liquid at their centre, since 

 paper and wood take fire immediately on being thrust to a 

 certain depth in their clefts. The slowness with which lava 

 conducts caloric is well known. It is, therefore, to be ex- 

 pected, that the fall of rain in any quantity would propor- 

 tionately increase the activity of these vapours, which are 

 almost solely aqueous. The moisture deposited on the sur- 

 face of the recent lava currents, that nearly envelop the 

 whole cone, percolating to the interior, becomes converted 

 into steam, and forces its way through the longitudinal rents 

 or channels that occur in every lava current, and particularly 



