72 HISTORY OF 



aiul figure. I hoard within that horrid guU" certain extraordinaiy 

 sounds, which seemed to proceed from the bowels of the nioun- 

 tain, a sort of murmuring, sighing, dashing sound ; and, between 

 whiles, a noise like that of thunder or cannon, with a clattering 

 like that of tiles falling from the tops of houses into the streets, 

 sometimes, as the wind changed, the smoke grew thinner, dis- 

 covering a very ruddy flame, and the circumference of the crater 

 streaked with red and several shades of yellow. After an hour's 

 stay, the smoke, being moved by the wind, gave us short and 

 partial prospects of the great hollow ; in the flat bottom of which 

 I could discern two furnaces almost contiguous ; that on the left 

 seeming about three yards over, glowing with ruddy flame, and 

 throwing up red-hot stones with a hideous noise, which, as they 

 fell back, caused the clattering already taken notice of.~ May 8, 

 in the morning, I ascended the top of Vesuvius a second time, 

 and found a diSerent face of things. The smoke ascending up- 

 right, gave a full prospect of the crater, which, as I could 

 judge, was about a mile in circumference, and a hundred yards 

 deep. A conical mount had been formed, since my last visit, 

 in the middle of the bottom, which I could see was made by the 

 f tones, thrown up and fallen back again into the crater. In this 

 new hill remained the two furnaces already mentioned. The 

 one was seen to throw up every three or foiu: minutes, with a 

 dreadful sound, a vast number of red-hot stones, at least three 

 hundred feet higher than my head, as I stood upon the brink ; 

 but as there was no wind, they fell perpendicularly back from 

 whence they had been discharged. The other was filled with 

 red-hot liquid matter, like that in the furnace of a glass-house, 

 raging and working like the waves of the sea, with a short abrupt 

 noise. This matter would sometimes boil over, and run down 

 the side of the conical hill, appearing at first red hot, but chang- 

 ing colour as it hardened and cooled. Had the wind driven in 

 our faces, we had been in no small danger of stifling by the sul- 

 phureous smoke, or being killed by the masses of melted minerals 

 that were shot from the bottom. But as the wind was favour- 

 able, I bad an opportunity of surveying this amazing scene for 

 above an hour and a half together. On the fifth of June, after 

 a horrid noise, the mountain was seen at Naples to work over ; 

 and, about three days after, its thunders were renewed so, that 

 not only the windows in the city, but all the houses, shook. 



