VOL. XXX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 31Q 



heard the murmur and groaning of the mountain, which would sometimes 

 burst out into louder peals, throwing up huge spouts of fire and burning 

 stones, which falling down again resembled the stars in rockets. Sometimes I 

 observed two, at others three, distinct columns of flame, and sometimes one 

 vast column that seemed to fill the whole crater. These burning columns and 

 the fiery stones seemed to be shot 1000 feet perpendicular above the summit 

 of the volcano. The Uth at night, I observed it, from a terrass in Naples, 

 to throw up incessantly a vast body of fire and great stones to a surprising 

 height. The 12th in the morning, it darkened the sun with ashes and smoke, 

 causing a kind of eclipse. Horrid bellowings this and the foregoing day were 

 heard at Naples, whither part of the ashes also reached. At night I observed 

 it throw up flame, as on the 11 th. On the 13th, the wind changing, we saw 

 a pillar of black smoke shot upright to a prodigious height. At night I ob- 

 served the mount cast up fire as before, though not so distinctly, because of 

 the smoke. The 14th, a thick black cloud hid the mountain from Naples. 

 The 15th, in the morning, the court and walls of our house in Naples were 

 covered with ashes. In the evening, flame appeared on the mountain through 

 the cloud. The l6th, the smoke was driven by a westerly wind from the town 

 to the opposite side of the mountain. The 17th, the smoke appeared much 

 diminished, fat and greasy. The 1 8th, the whole appearance ended, the 

 mountain remaining perfectly quiet without any visible smoke or flame. A 

 gentleman of my acquaintance, whose window looked toward Vesuvius, assured 

 me, that he observed this night several flashes, as it were of lightning, issue 

 out of the mouth of the volcano. I saw the fluid matter rise out of the 

 centre of the bottom of the crater, out of the very middle of the mountain, 

 contrary to what Borellus imagines ; whose ujethod of explaining the eruption 

 of a volcano by an inflexed syphon, and the rules of hydrostatics, is like- 

 wise inconsistent with the torrent's flowing down from the very top of the 

 mountain. 



An Account of an extraordinary Tumour , or fVen, lately cut off the Cheek 

 of a Person in Scotland. Communicated, by Dr. Tho. Bower, M. D. and 

 F.R.S. N°354, p. 713. 



Alexander Palmer, of the parish of Keith, in the county of BamfF, in the 

 north of Scotland, now about 54 years of age, observed, when about 27, a 

 little hard swelling in the muscle of the lower jaw on the left side, without any 

 hurt or visible cause. At first it increased slowly, but afterwards it proceeded 

 more quickly, and the longer always the faster;. till it increased to a prodigious 

 bulk and weight. From the first appearance of this tumour to its total exci- 



