fS PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 696. 



to give an account of Mount Vesuvius and its late eruption ; telling us that the 

 hill is obtuse, and has at top a large cavity 2 miles around, which in the middle 

 has another mountain, and in it a cavity : out of this come the smoke and flame, 

 which in April 1694 it began to throw out, with a noise more than usual, and 

 affrighted the people near it ; so that they removed themselves and goods. On 

 the 5th day after, a river of melted metal ran down the mountain by a slow pace : 

 to prevent the ravage of which, the viceroy ordered a great ditch to be dug to 

 receive it, where after 8 days space it rested, a mile from the sea. Then the 

 whole river of metalline matter was from 20 to 1 50 paces broad, and the depth 

 was from J 5 to 80 paces, and its length 4 miles; the rccrementitious and 

 lighter parts of which were at top, the more metalline at bottom. 



The account of the very extraordinary skeleton here treated of, has been 

 already printed in these Transactions, N" 215. 



The last part of this book is an account of a very large sarcoma, or excres- 

 cence of the uterus, which befel a woman on being frighted and kicked on the 

 belly. It was 25 years growing in the cavity of the uterus, and came at last to 

 be 22 inches long, 12 broad, and 10 deep, weighing 42lb. and a quarter, being 

 fleshy and uniform. The doctor gives the figure of it, and concludes it to be 

 no mole, but the inward glandulous coat of the womb grown to that size, after 

 the manner of the bronchocele in the Alps, or the polypus in the nose ; and 

 has a great many reasonable conjectures on the probable causes of it and other 

 tumours. 



On a Substance like Butter, fulling from the Air ; in a Letter from Mr. Robert 

 Vam of Kilkenny iti Ireland. Dated Nov. 15, 1695, to Mr. Henry Million. 

 N° 220, p 223. 



We have had of late, in the county of Limerick and Tipperary, showers of 

 a matter, like butter or grease. If this be rubbed on one's hand, it will melt, 

 but laid by the fire, it dries and grows hard, having a very stinking smell. 

 This last night some fell at this place, which I saw this morning. It is gathered 

 into pots and other vessels, by some of the inhabitants of this place. 



On the same Bulter-like Substance ; from the Bishop of Cloyne's Letter, ?iear 

 Youghall, April 2, 1696. N" 220, p. 223. 



Having very diligently inquired concerning a very odd phenomenon, which 

 was observed in many jjarts of Munster and Leinster, the best account I can 

 collect of it is as follows ; for a good part of last winter and spring, there fell 

 in several places, a kind of thick dew, which the country people called butter 

 from the consistency and colour of it, being soft, clammy, and of a dark yel- 



