82 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Aug. 10, 1883.' 



were propelled from the crater, and spread many miles on 

 every side of Vesuvius. 



" In this great eruption, Vesuvius poured forth lapilli, 

 sand, cinders, and fragments of old lava, but no new lava 

 flowed from the crater. Nor does it appear that any lava- 

 stream was ejected during the six eruptions which took 

 place during the following ten centuries. In the year 1036, 

 for the first time, Vesuvius was observed to pour forth a 

 stream of molten lava. Thirteen years later, another 

 eruption took place ; then ninety years passed without 

 disturbance, and after that a long pause of 168 years. 

 During this interval, however, the volcanic system, of 

 which Vesuvius is the main but not the only vent, had 

 been disturbed twice. For it is related that in 1198 

 the Solfatara Lake crater was in eruption; and in 1302 

 Ischia, dormant for at least 1,100 years, showed signs 

 of new activity. For more than a year earthquakes had 

 convulsed this island from time to time, and at length the 

 disturbed region was relieved by the outburst of a lava 

 stream from a new vent on the south-east of Ischia. The 

 lava stream flowed right down to the sea, a distance of 

 two miles. For two months, this dreadful outburst con- 

 tinued to rage ; many houses were destroyed ; and although 

 the inhabitants of Ischia were not completely expelled, as 

 happened of old with the Greek colonists, yet a partial 

 emigration took place. 



"The next eruption of Vesuvius occurred in 1306 ; and 

 then three centuries and a quarter passed during which 

 only one eruption, and that an unimportant one (in 1500), 

 took place. 'It was remarked,' says Sir Charles Lyell, 

 ' that throughout this long interval of rest, Etna was in 

 a state of unusual activity, so as to lend countenance to 

 the idea that the great Sicilian volcano may sometimes 

 serve as a channel of discharge to elastic fluids and lava 

 that would otherwise rise to the vents in Campania.' 



" Nor was the abnormal activity of Etna the only sign 

 that the quiescence of Vesuvius was not to be looked 

 upon as any evidence of declining energy in the vol- 

 canic system. In 1.538 a new mountain was suddenly 

 thrown up in the Phlegr;L-an Fields — a district including 

 within its bounds Pozzuoli, Lake Avernus, and the 

 Solfatara. The new mountain was thrown up near the 

 shores of the Bay of Baiaj. It is 140 feet above the level 

 of the bay, and its base is about a mile and a half in cir- 

 cumference. The depth of the crater is 421 feet, so that 

 its bottom is only six yards above the level of the bay. 

 The spot on which the mountain was thrown up was 

 formei'ly occupied by the Lucrine Lake ; but the outburst 

 filled up the greater part of the lake, leaving only a small 

 and shallow pool. 



" The accounts which have reached us of the formation 

 of this new mountain are not without interest. Falconi, 

 who wrote in 1538, mentions that several earthquakes 

 took place during the two years preceding the outburst, 

 and above twenty shocks on the day and night before 

 the eruption. ' The eruption began on September 29, 

 1538. It was on a Sunday, about one o'clock in the 

 night, when flames of fire were seen between the hot-baths 

 and Tripergola. In a short time the fire increased to such 

 a degree that it burst open the earth in this place, and 

 threw up a quantity of ashes and pumice-stones, mixed 

 with water, which covei-ed the whole country. The next 

 mornmg the poor inhabitants of Pozzuoli quitted their 

 habitations in terror, covered with the muddy and black 

 shower, which continued the whole day in that country — 

 flying from death, but with death painted in their counte- 

 nances. Some with their children in their arms, some with 

 sacks full of their goods; others leading an ass, loaded 

 with their frightened family, towards Naples. . . . The 



sea had retired on the side of Baiiv, abandoning a con- 

 siderable tract ; and the shore appeared almost entirely 

 dry, from the quantity of ashes and broken pumice-stones 

 thrown up by the eruption.' 



" And now, for nearly a century, the whole district con- 

 tinued in repose. Nearly five centuries had passed since 

 there had been any violent eruption of Vesuvius itself; 

 and the crater seemed gradually assuming the condition of 

 an extinct volcano. The interior of the crater is described 

 by Bracini, who visited Vesuvius shortly before the erup- 

 tion of 1631, in terms that would have fairly represented 

 its condition before the eruption of 79 : — 'The crater was 

 five miles in circumference, and about a thousand paces 

 deep ; its sides were covered with brushwood, and at the 

 bottom there was a plain on which cattle grazed. In the 

 woody parts, wild boars frequently harboured. In 

 one part of the plain, covered with ashes, were three 

 small pools, one tilled with hot and bitter water, another 

 Salter than the sea, and a third hot, but tasteless.' But 

 in December, 1631, the mountain blew away the covering of 

 rock and cmders which supported these woods and pastures. 

 Seven streams of lava poured from the crater, causing 

 a fearful destruction of life and property. Kesina, built 

 over the site of Herculaneum, was entirely consumed by a 

 raging lava-stream. Heavy showers of rain, generated by 

 the steam evolved during the eruption, caused in their turn 

 an amount of destruction scarcely less important than that 

 resulting from the lava-streams ; for, falling upon the cone 

 and sweeping thence large masses of ashes and volcanic 

 dust, these showers produced destructive streams of mud, 

 consistent enough to merit the name of ' aqueous lava ' 

 commonly assigned to it. 



" An interval of thirty-five years passed before the next 

 eruption, but since 1666 there has been a continual series 

 of eruptions, so that the mountain has scarcely ever been 

 at rest for more than ten years together. Occasionally 

 there have been two eruptions within a few months ; and 

 it is well worthy of remark that during the three centuries 

 which have elapsed since the formation of Monte Nuovo 

 there has been no volcanic disturbance in any part of the 

 Neapolitan volcanic district save in Vesuvius alone. Of 

 old, as Brieslak well remarks, there had been irregular 

 disturbances in some part of the Bay of Naples once in 

 every two hundred years — the eruption of Solfatara in the 

 twelfth century, that of Ischia in the fourteenth, and that 

 of Monte Nuovo in the sixteenth ; but ' the eighteenth has 

 formed an exception to the rule.' It seems clear that the 

 constant series of eruptions from Vesuvius during the past 

 two hundred years has sufficed to relieve the volcanic 

 district of which Vesuvius is the principal vent." 



So I wrote a few years ago, but the great earthquake 

 from Ischia shows that the old state of things has not so 

 completely passed away as had been supposed. 



THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF MYTH. 



By Edward Clodd. 



XIII. 



TRADITIONS of transformation of men into beasts are 

 not confined to the Old World. In Dr. Rink's " Tales 

 of the Eskimo" there are numerous stories both of men and 

 women who have assumed animal form at will, as also inci- 

 dental references to the belief in stories such as that telling 

 how an Eskimo got inside a walrus skin, so that he might 

 lead the life of that creature. And among the Red Races, 

 that rough analogy which led to the animal being credited 

 with life and consciousness akin to the human, .still expresses 



