VOL. LXX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 6ig 



them, shrivelled and dried up by the intense heat of the volcanic shower. After 

 having passed through the most fertile country, through villages crowded with 

 chearful inhabitants, to come at once to such a scene of desolation and misery, 

 affording to their view nothing but heaps of black cinders and ashes, blasted 

 trees, ruined houses, with a few of their scattered inhabitants just returned with 

 dismayed countenances, to survey the havock. done to their habitations, and from 

 which they had with much ditiiculty escaped alive on Sunday last, was a most 

 melancholy scene. 



The roof of his Sicilian Majesty's sporting seat at Caccia-bella was much 

 damaged by the fall of large stones and heavy scoriae, some of which, after 

 having been broken by their fall through ttie roof, still weighed upwards of 

 30 pounds. This place, in a direct line, cannot be less than 4 miles from the 

 crater of Vesuvius. The most authentic accounts were received of the fall of 

 small volcanic stones and cinders, some of which weighed 2 ounces, at Bene- 

 vento, Foggia, and Monte Mileto, upwards of 30 miles from Vesuvius; but 

 what is most extraordinary, as there was but little wind during the eruption of 

 the 8th of August, minute ashes fell thick that very night on the town of Man- 

 fredonia, which is at the distance of an hundred miles from Vesuvius. These 

 facts seem to confirm the supposed extreme height of the column of fire that 

 issued from the crater of Vesuvius on the 8th, and are greatly in support of 

 what is recorded in the history of Vesuvius with respect to the fall of its ashes 

 at an amazing distance, and in a short space of time, during its violent 

 eruptions. 



Proceeding from Caccia-bella to Ottaiano, which is a mile nearer to Vesuvius, 

 and is reckoned to contain 1 2,000 inhabitants, nothing could be more dismal 

 than the sight of this town, unroofed, half buried under black scoriae and ashes, 

 all the windows towards the mountain broken, and some of the houses themselves 

 burnt, the streets choaked up with these ashes ; in some that were narrow, the 

 stratum was not less than 4 feet thick, and a few of the inhabitants just returned 

 were employed in clearing them away, and piling up the ashes in hillocks to get 

 at their ruined houses. Some monks, who were in their convent during the 

 whole of the horrid shower, gave the following particulars, which they related 

 with solemnity and precision. 



The mountain of Somma, at the foot of which Ottaiano is situated, hides 

 Vesuvius from its sight, so that till the eruption became considerable it was not 

 visible to them. On the 8th, when the noise increased, and the fire began to 

 appear above the mountain of Somma, many of the inhabitants of this town 

 flew to the churches, and others were preparing to quit the town, when a sudden 

 violent report was heard; soon after which they found themselves involved in a 



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