RISE OF MOLTEN ROCK TO THE EARTH'S SURFACE 119 



beginning in a great upward rush of steam and ash, accompanied 

 by a low rumbling sound. During the following night the erup- 

 tions increased in violence, and the anxious planter remained on 

 watch in his villa a mile from the crater. Falling asleep toward 

 morning, he was rudely awakened by a rain of projectiles falling 

 upon his roof. Hastily snatching up his two children he ran 

 toward the door just as a red hot projectile, some two feet in di- 

 ameter, descended through the roof, ceiling, and floor of the drawing 

 room, setting fire to the building. A second projectile similar to 

 the first was smashed into fragments at his feet as he was emerg- 

 ing from the house, burning one of the children. Making his 

 escape to Vulcanello at the extremity of the island, the remainder 

 of the night and the following day, until rescue came from Lipari, 

 were spent just beyond the range 

 of the falling masses. 



When the writer visited the 

 island some months later, the 

 eruption was still so vigorous that 

 the crater could not be reached. 

 The ruined villa, smashed and 

 charred, stood with its walls half 

 buried in ash and lapilli, among 

 which were partly smashed pumi- 



ceous lava projectiles. The entire atrio about the mountain lay 

 buried in cinder to the depth of several feet and was strewn with 

 projectiles which varied in size from a man's fist to several feet 

 in diameter (Fig. 114). The larger of these exhibited the peculiar 

 " bread-crust " surface and had generally been smashed by the 

 force of their fall after the manner of a pumpkin which has been 

 thrown hard against the ground. One of these projectiles fully 

 three feet in diameter was found at the distance of a mile and a 

 half from the crater. Though diminished considerably in inten- 

 sity, the rhythmic explosions within the crater still recurred at 

 intervals varying from four minutes to half an hour, and were 

 accompanied by a dull roar easily heard at Lipari on a neighboring 

 island six miles away. Simultaneously, a dark cloud of " smoke," 

 the peculiar " cauliflower cloud " or pino mounted for a couple 

 of miles above the crater (Fig. 115), and the rise was succeeded 

 by a rain of small lava fragments or lapilli outside the crater rim. 



FIG. 114. "Bread-crust" lava pro- 

 jectile from the eruption of Volcano 

 in 1888 (after Mercalli). 



