134 TRAVELS THROUGH 



elevation. Is this confident with our common 

 Chronology * ? 



Monte Som/na and Ottajano are volcanic moun- 

 tains, or rather the fame mountain, called at 

 one fide of Vefuvius Somma, and at the other. 

 Ottajano. It furrounds Vcfuvius like a wall, in 

 a femicircular form ; is lefs elevated , very fteep, 

 and irregularly broken towards the valley, by 

 v^hich it is divided from Vefuvius. This fitu- 

 ation, and the prefent condition of many fimi- 

 lar fwallowed volcanos, make it highly probable, 

 that Monte Somma, Ottajano, and Vefuvius> have 

 been, in former times, a coherent mafs of a co- 

 nical form, and much higher than Vefuvius ; 

 .. at the top of this coloffal volcano funk, and the 

 whole mountain was fvvallowed into itfelf ; that Som- 

 r/ia and Ottajano are but part of the anterior larger 

 funnel-, that there have been new eruptions from 

 the funk funnel, which by accumulated lavas and 

 afhes have fuccefiively raifed the now fubfiftent 

 Vefuvius in the lame manner as the eruptions of 

 1685 and 1689 produced a fmaller hill, which was 



* Why not ? . If jnonte nuovo has been raifed in twenty-four 

 hours time, why fiiould not Vefuvius have been raifed within 

 ihe compafs of our Chronology, though in times much ante- 

 rior to the eldeil Greek hiftorians ? There are certainly much 

 ftronger arguments againft that Monkifh and Rabbinical 

 fy ile.ro. 



2 fvvallowed 



