Chap. 47.] Sails of Fire. 341 



and indeed the dorms raifed evidently by the fole 

 power of the volcano, refembled in every refpect all 

 other thunder-ftorms ; the lightning falling and de- 

 ftroying every thing in its courfc. The houfe of the 

 Marquis of Berio at St. Jorio, fituate at the foot of 

 Vefuvius, during one of thefe volcanic florms was 

 flruck with lightning, which having fhattered many 

 doors and windows, and damaged the furniture, left 

 for fome time a ftrong fmell of fulphur in the rooms 

 it p?{Ted through. Out of thefe gigantic and volcanic 

 clouds, befides the lightning, both during this eruption 

 and that of 1779, t ^ ie author adds, he had, with many 

 others, feen bails of fire iflue, and fomc of a confi- 

 dcrable magnitude, which burfting in the air, produced 

 nearly the fame effect as that from the air-balloons. in 

 fire-works, the electric fire that came out having the 

 appearance of the ferpents with which thofe fire-work 

 balloons are often filled. The day on which Naples 

 was in the greatefl danger from the volcanic clouds, two 

 fmall balls of fire, joined together by a fmall link like 

 a chain- (hot, fell clofe to his Cafino at Pofilipo ; they 

 feparated. and one fell in the vineyard above the houfe, 

 and the other in the fea, fo clofe to it that he heard the 

 fplafh in the water. The Abbe Tata, in his printed 

 account of this eruption, mentions an enormous ball 

 of this kind which flew out of the crater of Vefuvius 

 while he was {landing on the edge of it, and which 

 burft in the air at fome diftance from the mpuntain, 

 foon after which he heard a noiie like the fall of a 

 number of ftones, or of a heavy fliower of hail. Dur- 

 ing the eruption of the i5th at night, few of the 

 inhabitants of Naples, from the dread of earthquakes, 

 ventured to go to their beds. The common people 

 were either employed in devout proceffions in the 

 ftreets, or were fleeping on the quays and open places j 

 Z the 



