318 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 17 J7. 



little out of the crater. The same continued the dth. The 7th, nothing was 

 observed till within two hours of night, when it began a hideous bellowing, 

 which continued all that night, and the next day till noon, causing the win- 

 dows, and as some affirm, the very houses in Naples to shake. From that 

 time it belched out vast quantities of molten matter to the south, which 

 streamed down the side of the mountain. This evening I returned from a 

 journey through Apulia, and was surprised, passing by the north side of the 

 mountain, to see a great quantity of ruddy smoke lie along a large tract of sky 

 over the river of molten matter, which was itself out of sight. The gth, Ve- 

 suvius raged less violently: and that night we saw from Naples a column of 

 fire shoot sometimes out of its summit. The 10th, when we thought all 

 would have been over, the mountain became very outrageous again, roaring 

 and groaning most dreadfully. This noise, in its most violent fits, resembled 

 a mixed confused sound, made up of the raging of a tempest, the murmur of 

 a troubled sea, and the roaring of thunder and artillery, all together. It was 

 very terrible as heard in the further end of Naples, at the distance of above 12 

 miles. This gave me the curiosity to approach the mountain. Three or four 

 of us got into a boat, and were set ashore at Torre del Greco, a town situated 

 at the foot of Vesuvius to the south-west, whence we rode 4 or 5 miles before 

 we came to the burning river, being then about midnight. The roaring of the 

 volcano became exceedingly loud and horrible as we approached. I observed a 

 mixture of colours in the cloud over the crater, green, yellow, red and blue; 

 there was also a ruddy dismal light in the air over that tract of land where the 

 burning river flowed ; ashes continually showered on us all the way from the 

 sea-coast. All which circumstances, set off and augmented by the horror and 

 silence of the night, made a scene the most uncommon and astonishing I ever 

 saw ; which grew still more extraordinary as we came nearer the stream, re- 

 sembling a vast torrent of liquid fire, rolling from the top down the side of 

 the mountain, and with irresistible fury bearing down and consuming vines, 

 olives, fig-trees, houses, in short, every thing that stood in its way. This 

 niighty flood divided into different channels, according to the inequalities of 

 the mountain. The largest stream seemed half a mile broad at least, and 5 

 miles long. The nature and consistence of these burning torrents hath been 

 described, with so much exactness and truth, by Borelli, in his Latin treatise 

 of Mount iEtna, that I need say nothing of it. I walked so far before my 

 companions, up the mountain along the side of the river of fire, that I was 

 obliged to retire in great haste, the sulphureous steam having surprised me, 

 and almost taken away my breath. 

 During our return, which was about 3 o'clock in the morning, we constantly 



