THE EARTH. 43 



fnl eruption that the city of Herculaneum was overwhelmed ; the ru- 

 ms of which have lately been discovered at sixty feet distance below 

 ;ne surface, and, what is still more remarkable, forty feet below the 

 bed of the sea. One of the most remarkable eruptions of this moun- 

 tain was in the year 1707) which is finely described by Valetta ; a 

 part of whose description I shall beg leave to translate. 



" Towards the latter end of summer, in the year 1707) the Mount 

 Vesuvius, that had for a long time been silent, now began to give some 

 signs of commotion. Little more than internal murmurs at first were 

 heard, that seemed to contend within the lowest depths of the mountain ; 

 no flame, nor even any smoke, was as yet seen. Soon after some smoke 

 appeared by day, and a flame by night, which seemed to brighten all 

 the campania. At intervals, also, it shot off substances with a sound 

 very like that of artillery, but which, even at so great a distance 

 as we were at, infinitely exceeded them in greatness. Soon after it 

 began to throw up ashes, which becoming the sport of the winds, fell 

 at great distances, and some many miles. To this succeeded showers 

 of stones, which killed many of the inhabitants of the valley, but 

 made a dreadful ravage among the cattle. Soon after a torrent 

 of burning matter began to roll down the sides of the mountain, at 

 first with a slow and gentle motion, but soon with increased celerity. 

 The matter thus poured out, when cold, seemed upon inspection to be 

 of vitrified earth, the whole united into a mass of more than stony 

 hardness. But what was particularly observable was, that upon the 

 whole surface of these melted materials, a light spongy stone seemed 

 to float, while the lower body was of the hardest substance of which 

 our roads are usually made. Hitherto there were no appearances but 

 what had been often remarked before ; but on the third or fourth day, 

 seeming flashes of lightning were shot forth from the mouth of the 

 mountain, with a noise far exceeding the loudest thunder. These 

 flashes, in colour and brightness, resembled what we usually see in 

 tempests, but they assumed a more twisted and serpentine form. Af- 

 ter this followed such clouds of smoke and ashes, that the whole city 

 of Naples, in the midst of the day, was involved in nocturnal darkness, 

 and the nearest friends were unable to distinguish each other in this 

 frightful gloom. If any person attempted to stir out without torch- 

 light, he was obliged to return, and every part of the city was filled 

 with supplications and terror. At length, after a continuance of some 

 hours, about one o'clock at midnight, the wind blowing from the north, 

 the stars began to be seen ; the heavens, though it was night, began 

 to grow brighter ; and the eruptions, after a continuance of fifteen 

 days, to lessen. The torrent of melted matter was sees to extend 

 from the mountain down to the shore ; the people began to return to 

 their former dwellings, and the whole face of nature to resume its, 

 former appearance." 



The famous Bishop Berkeley gives an account of one of these erup- 

 tions in a manner something different from the former.* ' v In the 

 year 1717, and the middle of April, with much difficulty I reached the 

 top of Mount Vesuvius, in which I saw a vast aperture fu.l of smoke 



PhiL Trans, vol. ii. p. 209. 



