NATURAL HISTORY. 71 



Y.-erc depu 1 i.-,l lo .some distance from Sicily were incom- 

 moded by them. Karelli describes the conflagration of 

 this mountain circumstantially, ami says the foot of it 

 is 100 leagues in circumference. 



1 iiis volcano has now two principal mouths, the en* 

 narrower tiian the other. These two vents always 

 moke, but fire is never seen to issue from them, but du- 

 ring the time of eruptions. It i* pretended that stones 

 ore found which it has thrown out to the distance of 

 b'0,000 feet*. 



One of the last and most violent eruptions of mount 

 Vesuvius was in the year 1?37- The mountain vomit- 

 ed by divers mouths large torrents of burning metallic 

 matters, which dispersed themselves over the country 

 and into the sea. Mons. de Montealegre, who com- 

 municated this relation to the Academy of Sciences, 

 observed with horror one of these rivers of fire, and saw 

 its course for six or seven miles till it reached the sea. 

 Its breadth was sixty or seventy feet, its depth, twenty- 

 five or thirty palms, and in certain bottoms or valleys, 

 220 ; the matter which flowed was like the scum which 

 issues from the furnace of a forge. 



In Asia as well as in America there are a great num- 

 ber of volcanoes; but there is nothing peculiarly worthy 

 of remark in any, except the violence with which some 

 of them occasionally emit the burning matters with 

 which they are charged. 



Near Fez in Africa, there is a mountain, or rather 

 a cavern, called Beniguazevel, which always emits 

 smoke, and sometimes flames. One of the islands of 

 Cape Verd, called the island of Fuogo, is only a larga 



Sea a most interesting description of this celebrated mountain iii a 

 Mid <'iitrrta.i:;ii!g production iutilled, Bntlo.i's Tour tliroo^K 

 Ski!) and MaXa." 



