VESUVIUS IN ERUPTION 67 



steam with such vigour that as it cools into the condition 

 of " cloud " an appearance like that of a gigantic pine-tree 

 seven miles high (in the case of Vesuvius) is produced. 



We made our way to the advancing end of one of the 

 lava-streams (like the " snout " of a glacier), which was 

 20 ft. high, and moved forwards but slowly, in successive 

 jerks. Two hundred yards farther up, where it issued 

 from the sandy ashes, the lava was white-hot and running 

 like water, but it was not in very great quantity and rapidly 

 cooled on the surface and became " sticky." A cooled 

 skin of slag was formed in this way, which arrested the 

 advancing stream of lava. At intervals of a few minutes 

 this cooled crust was broken into innumerable clinkers 

 by the pressure of the stream, and there was a noise like 

 the smashing of a gigantic store of crockery ware as the 

 pieces or " clinkers " fell over one another down the nearly 

 vertical " snout " of the lava-stream, whilst the red-hot 

 molten material burst forward for a few feet, but imme- 

 diately became again " crusted over " and stopped in its 

 progress. We watched the coming together and fusion of 

 the two streams and the overwhelming and burning up of 

 several trees by the steadily, though slowly, advancing 

 river of fire. Then we climbed up the ash-cone, getting 

 nearer and nearer to the rim of the crater, from which 

 showers of glowing stones were being shot. The deep 

 roar of the mountain at each effort was echoed from the 

 cliffs of the ancient mother-crater, Monte Somma, and the 

 ground shook under our feet as does a ship at sea when 

 struck by a wave. The night was very still in the intervals. 

 The moon was shining, and a weird melancholy " ritor- 

 nelle " sung by peasants far off in some village below us 

 came to our ears with strange distinctness. It might 

 have been the chorus of the imprisoned giants of Vulcan's 

 forge as they blew the sparks with their bellows and shook 

 the mountains with the heavy blows of their hammers. 



