100 



sweetish fluid will drop from it : but a piece of paper, 

 instead of being moistened, grows quite dry and stiff. 

 The stones near these cracks are in continual motion ; 

 ^nd small stones dropped into them are ejected to the 

 height of twelve feet, like the ponderous masses from 

 Vesuvius. In some places the sand, by the force of 

 the vapours, springs up and down, like the sparkling of 

 cyder. 



Out of Solfatara they extract, beside sulphur, blue vi- 

 triol, and the best kind of allum. The large leaden 

 kettles used therein, are not heated by a culinary fire, 

 but by the natural heat, issuing through holes in the 

 ground, over which the vessels are placed. 



8. Not far from Puzzuolo is Monte Nuovo, which 

 rose suddenly in the night, between the igth and 20th 

 of September, 1636. During a dreadful earthquake, 

 that laid the whole neighbourhood in ruins, the subter- 

 raneous fire, opening a large chasm in the ground, threw 

 out such quantities of stones, ashes, bitumen, and sand, 

 as in twenty-four hours formed this mountain. Its per- 

 pendicular height is 400 rods, its circuit three miles. 

 The edge of the first aperture is still visible, a mile in 



.circuit, though it is now entirely filled up, 



9. An event similar to this occurred more lately. 

 After a shock of the earth, there was seen from Santo- 

 rini (an island in the Archipelago, on the coast of Nato- 

 lia) on the 23d of May, 1/O7, as it were a floating rock. 

 Some were so bold as to go down upon it, even while 

 it was rising under their feet. The earth of it was very 

 light, and contained a small quantity of potters clay. It 

 increased daily, till it was half a mile in circumference, 

 and twenty or twenty-five feet high. At this time a 

 great ridge of rocks, dark and black, rose out of the sea, 

 and joined to the new island. Then there issued out of 

 it a thick smoke, with a noise like constant thundering, 

 (T a discharge of many cannon at once. The sea water 

 ( o itinually bubbled up; and in a short time the new land 

 presented nothing to view for whole nights, but a great 4 



