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pened in the reign of the Emperor Titus, 

 in that dreadful ejedion of lava, fmoke, 

 and afhes, which Vefuvius caft forth, and in 

 which Pliny the Naturalift perlihed. An- 

 other fimilar took place in modern times, 

 in the fame fea, during another terrible 

 eruption of Vefuvius, as is recorded by 

 authors worthy of credit who lived at the 

 time. Serao, in his Relation of the Con- 

 flagration of Vefuvius in 1737, referring to 

 the accounts of former conflagrations of 

 that mountain, remarks, that " if not in all, 

 at leaft in the more terrible conflagrations, 

 mention is made of the retiring of the fea 

 as a concurrent circumftance." Steller, in 

 his Obfervations on the Volcanos of Kam- 

 fchatka, remarks, that the greater part of 

 earthquakes happen at the time of the equi- 

 noxes, when the fea is moft fwelled, and 

 efpecially at the autumnal equinox, when 

 its waters are higheft. 



It is therefore evident that a great mafs 



of water fuddenly reduced to vapour by 



fubterranean fires mud caufe prodigious ex- 



A a 2 plofions, 



