4Q6 DOMAIN XII. VOLCANIC. 



Jives. The appearance of the smallest cloud 

 occasioned general consternation. 

 Mephitic Nor did the series of calamities which ac- 



vapours. 



companied this fatal eruption terminate here. 

 In different parts around the mountain, power- 

 ful murtherous vapours, of a mephitic nature, 

 were exhaled. These manifested themselves, 

 not only in the greater part of the cellars of the 

 houses of Portici and Resina,but spread through 

 the country, carrying desolation in their train, 

 and destroying all the trees, which then were in 

 the finest state of vegetation. They showed 

 themselves in the different roads cut to ascend 

 Vesuvius, and occasioned there the death of a 

 number of animals, and even of some men. It 

 was certainly a most afflicting scene to behold 

 vast extents of ground in the highest state of 

 culture, which fortunately had escaped the ra- 

 vage of the rains, become in the space of a few 

 days the prey of this terrible scourge^ and all 

 their verdure and all their trees withered by the 

 baneful gas. 



" ^ ver extraordinary phenomenon, and 

 one highly worthy the attention of the natural- 

 ists who make the vegetable reign their study, 

 accompanies this mephitic vapour: though it 

 destroys all other vegetation, and causes even 

 the roots of other plants and trees to perish in a 



