MOUNT VESUVIUS. 23 



" The lava, as in every eruption he has seen, so far from being rapid, 

 was exceedingly slow in its course, flowing only a few feet in a minute. 

 At this time it seemed tending directly to the unfortunate town of Terra 

 del Greco, which it threatened to overwhelm, but it afterwards turned 

 aside, and following another hollow rolled in to a wide and deep chasm 

 of the mountain. He then attempted to ascend by the side of this burn- 

 ing river towards the cone, but its heat, which set fire to brushwood 

 and little trees at several feet distance, became insupportable. At every 

 throe of the volcano the mountain shook beneath his feet, and he was 

 already so near that the lapilla from the crater fell upon him like hail. 

 This sort of ash, which is called lapilla, is an exceedingly light and 

 porous substance, resembling pumice stone; and though it fell so thickly, 

 and in pieces as large as walnuts, it caused little annoyance. But the 

 heat, as it has been said, was insupportable ; and as the fumes of the 

 sulphur became still more so, causing a most disagreeable sensation of 

 suffocation, he returned to the hermitage. In a short time the quantity 

 of smoke was so great, and was so black, that it obscured the lava that 

 produced it. Nothing could now be seen distinctly, except the lightning 

 flashing through a pitchy sky, and a part of a column of fire from the 

 crater, looking a lurid red. The noise, tremendous even as far off as Naples, 

 was at a spot so near the Hermitage utterly astounding. Itshould be noticed 

 that this noise was produced by the passage through the air, of the matter 

 which the volcano ejected, and then the fall of that matter; for the forked 

 lightning wasunaccompanied by thunder itonly played close round and 

 above the crater, and seemed produced by electric fluid issuing thence, 

 and to depend on the dense black clouds that flanked the ascending 

 column of fire. 



"The violence of this eruption was little abated for two days and nights. 

 Fortunately, however, the lava, in the course it took, did not find any 

 town or village to destroy, and the lapilla, and ashes or dust that fell in 

 almost inconceivable quantities in every place in the neighbouhood,were 

 not difficult to remove, and indeed (that being the rainy season) were 

 mainly washed away by the heavy rains shortly after. 



" When the smoke cleared away from the mountain, which it did not for 

 many days, it was perceived that the eruption had carried away the edges 

 or lips of the crater, and materially altered the shape, and lowered the 

 cone of Vesuvius. The lava, by this time, though its outer coating had 

 cooled to such a degree that you could walk over it, still burned beneath; 

 and it was many days more before what had been rivers of liquid fire 

 became cold. 



