344 Intenfe Heat of the .Sea Water. [Book VI. 



tremely fait and pungent. In the printed account of 

 the eruption by Emanuel Scotti, doctor of phyfic and 

 profeffor of philofophy in the univerfity of Naples, he 

 fuppofes (which appears to be highly probable) that 

 the water which accompanied the fall of t'he afhes at 

 the beginning of the eruption, was produced by the 

 mixture of the inflammable and dephlogifticated 

 air. 



By the time that the lava had reached the fea be- 

 tween five and fix o'clock in the morning of the T 6th, 

 Vefuvius was fo completely involved in darknefs, that 

 the violent operation of nature that was going on there 

 could no longer be difcerned, and fo it remained for 

 feveral (Jaysj but the dreadful noife, and the red tinge 

 on the clouds over the top of the mountain, were evi- 

 dent figns of the activity of the fire underneath. The 

 lava ran but flowly at Torre del Greco after it had 

 reached the fca ; and on the lyth of June in the morn- 

 ing, its courfe was (lopped, excepting that at times a 

 little rivulet of liquid fire iflued from under the 

 fmoking fcorias into the lea, and caufed a hiffing 

 noife, and a white fmoke ; at other times, a quantity 

 of large fcorias were pufhed off the furface of the body 

 of the lava into the fea, difcovering that it was redhoc 

 under that furface ; and even to the latter end of Auguft 

 the center of the thickeft part of the lava that covered 

 the town retained its red heat. The breadth of the 

 lava that ran into the fea, and formed a new promon- 

 tory there, after having deftroyed the greateft part of 

 the town of Torre del Greco, having been exactly 

 meafured by the duke della Torre, is of Englifh feet 

 1204. Its height above the fea is twelve feet, and as 

 many feet under water j fo that its whole height is 

 twenty-four feet ; it extends into the fea 626 feet. 

 The fea water was boiling as in a cauldron, where it 



w allied 



