Great Eruption. 869 



which poured forth in volumes. There were constant 

 bursts of fiery projectiles, shooting to an immense 

 height into the black column of smoke, and tinging 

 it with a lurid red colour. The fearful roaring and 

 thundering never ceased for one moment, and the 

 house shook with the concussion of the air. One 

 stream of lava flowed towards Torre del Greco, but 

 luckily stopped before it reached the cultivated fields ; 

 others, and the most dangerous ones, since some of 

 them came from the new craters, poured down the 

 Atrio del Cavallo, and dividing before reaching the 

 Observatory flowed to the right and to the left the 

 stream which flowed to the north very soon reached 

 the plain, and before night came on had partially 

 destroyed the small town of Massa di Somma. One 

 of the peculiarities of this eruption was the great 

 fluidity of the lava ; another was the never-ceasing 

 thundering of the mountain. During that day we ob- 

 served several violent explosions in the great stream 

 of lava : we thought from the enormous volumes of 

 black smoke emitted on these occasions that new 

 craters had burst out some below the level of the 

 Observatory; but that can hardly have been the 

 case. My daughters at night drove to Portici, 

 and went up to the top of a house, where the noise 

 seems to have been appalling ; but they told me they 

 did not gain anything by going to Portici, nor 



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