26 TRAVELS THROUGH 



former times volcanic eruptions, which, raifing 

 many lava hills, and occafioning in the calcareous 

 beds many failures and various (loping dip- 

 pings, have left every where inconteflable 

 marks and evidences of their former devafta- 

 tions, though unnoticed by the mofl ancient 

 hiflorians. 



I am obliged to make you equally acquainted 

 with P. Alberto Fort is. He is a white-friar, of 

 the Angufline order, and a man of a lively tem- 

 per, and much ingenuity. He is poflefled of folid 

 fcience and principles in Oryctography j has tra- 

 velled in Dalmatia, and lately publimed OJ/erva- 

 zioni fopra I'lfola di Cberfo ed Ofero. A great 

 number of his performances are inferred in the 

 Giornak d' It alia, and the Europa Letter aria > two 

 periodical reviews, publifhing at Venice. 



Padre Vio t a Dominican prieft in the convent 

 <S. Matiia, at Murano, near Venice, had fome 

 time ago a fine collection of petrifactions and 

 natural curiofities ; but he has fold it to Lord 

 Bute, who has travelled over Italy as a great 

 connoifleur and friend of natural hiftory and the 

 finer arts of the ancients. But Padre Vio has 

 already begun a new collection ; and he mewed 

 me a variety of imall microfcopic fhells and litho- 

 phytes, either natural ones found in the fands of 

 the Adriatic, or petrified and gathered in the Vi- 



centinc 



