NOME Vir. VOLCANIC- INTRITE. 479 



symptom of an approaching eruption ; but, to- 

 wards nine in the evening of the last day, many 

 symptoms were manifested. The houses about 

 the mountain experienced violent shocks, which Shocks, 

 gradually increased in force; a very powerful 

 one was felt at ten o'clock in Naples and its en- 

 virons. At this instant, on the western base of 

 the cone, at the spot called La Pedamentina, and 

 from the midst of ancient torrents, a new mouth 

 disgorged a stream of lava. This opening was issue of lava. 

 2375 feet in length, and 237 in breadth. Scarcely 

 had the stream of lava begun to flow, before 

 four conical hills, each having its small crater 

 (the third alone excepted, which had two distinct 

 mouths), arose out of the stream itself. From 

 these different mouths stones were darted into 

 the air with great noise, and in a state so highly 

 ignited that they resembled real flames; the ex- 

 plosions indeed were so quickly repeated that 

 they seemed but one, and formed a continued 

 sheet of fire in the air, which received no other 

 interruption than what was occasioned by the 

 inferiority of the force of some of the ejections. 

 They sometimes vomited substances, I may say, 

 in a fluid state, for they expanded in the air like 

 a soft paste, so that one may imagine they were 

 either a part of the running lava, or masses of 

 old lava fused and projected. Some of these 



