174 Caroline Lucretia Hcrsckel. [1824. 



tlie barometer and theiinometer during my absence, while 

 his brother observed below at Catania, and I carried up my 

 mountain barometer and other instruments to the summit. 

 From Nicolosi the ascent becomes rugged and laborious, 

 first through a broad belt of fine oak forest, which encircles 

 the mountain like a girdle about its middle, and affords some 

 beautiful romantic scenery when this is passed we soon 

 reach the limits of vegetation, and a long desolate scorched 

 slope, knee-deep in ashes, extends for about five miles to a 

 little hut, where I passed the night (a glorious starlight one) 

 with the barometer at 21*307 in. and next morning mounted 

 the crater by a desperate scramble up a cone of lava and 

 ashes, about 1,000 feet high. The sunrise from this altitude, 

 and the view of Sicily and Calabria, which is gradually dis- 

 closed, is easier conceived than described. On the highest 

 point of the crater I was enveloped in suffocating sulphurous 

 vapours, and was glad enough to make my observation (bar. 

 21*400) and get down. By this the altitude appears to be 

 between 10 and 11,000 feet. I reached Catania the same 

 night, almost dead with the morning's scramble and the 

 dreadful descent of near thirty miles, where the mules 

 (which can be used for a considerable part of the way) could 

 scarce keep their feet. 



Florence, Aug. IQtJi, 1824. In the hurry and bustle of 

 travelling one is obliged to write by snatches when one can. 

 I hope to hear from you at all events when I reach 

 England if I should not see you first, of which I begin now 

 to have serious doubts, having been so terribly retarded in 

 my Sicilian journey, and at Naples, on my return, by the 



illness of a friend. 



Your affectionate nephew, 



J. F. W. HERSCHEL. 



P.S. Have you heard how M. Pfaff's translation pro- 

 ceeds ? I wrote to him from Cattagione, in Sicily. 



