Chap. 47.] Ntw formed Mounfatots. 351 



fe<5ts, were vifible on thefe fine allies. Sir William 

 and his companion afcended to the fpot whence the 

 lava of the i5th firft iffued, and followed the courfe 

 of it, which was ftill very hot (although covered with 

 fuch a thick coat of aflies) quite down to the fea at 

 Torre del Greco, which is more than five miles. Ic 

 was not pofiible to get up to the great crater of Vefu- 

 vius, nor had any one yet attempted it. The horrid 

 chafms that exifted from the fpot where the late erup- 

 tion firft took place, in a (Irak line for near two miles 

 towards die fea, cannot be imagined. They formed 

 vallies more than two hundred feet deep, and from 

 half a mile to a mile wide; and where the fountains of 

 fiery matter exifted during the eruption, were little 

 mountains with deep craters. Ten thoufand men, in 

 as many years, could not make fuch an alteration on 

 the face of Veilivius. Except the exhalations of ful- 

 phureous and vitriolic vapours, which broke out from 

 different fpots of the line above mentioned, and tinged 

 the furface of the afties and fcorise in thofe parts with 

 either a deep or pale-yellow, with a reddim ochre 

 colour, or a bright white, and in fome parts with a 

 deep green and azure blue (fo that the whole toge- 

 ther had the effedb of an iris) all had the appearance of 

 a fandy defart. Our adventurers then went on the 

 top of feven of the moft confiderable of the new- 

 formed mountains, and looked into their craters, which, 

 on fome of them appeared to be little fhort of half a 

 mile in circumference ; and although the exterior per- 

 pendicular height of any of them did not exceed two 

 hundred feet, the depth of their inverted cone within 

 was three times as great. It would not have been 

 poflible to have breathed on thefe new mountains near 

 their craters, if they had not taken the precaution of 

 tying a doubled hankerchief over, their mouths and 



noftrils ; 



