VOL. LXXXV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 501 



been possible for us to liave breathed on these new mountains near their craters, 

 if we had not taken the precaution of tying a doubled handkerchief over our 

 mouths and nostrils; and even with that precaution we could not resist long, the 

 fumes of the vitriolic acid were so exceedingly penetrating, and of such a suffo- 

 cating quality. We found in one a double crater, like two funnels joined toge- 

 ther; and in all there was some little smoke and depositions of salts and sulphurs, 

 of the various colours above-mentioned, just as is commonly seen adhering to 

 the inner walls of the principal crater of Vesuvius. 



The rich vineyards belonging to the Torre del Greco, and which produced the 

 good wine called Lacrima Christi, that have been buried, and are totally de- 

 stroyed by this lava, consisted, as I have been informed, of more than three 

 thousand acres ; but the destruction of the vineyards by the torrents of mud and 

 water at the foot of the mountain of Somma, is much more extensive. I 

 visited that part of the country also a few days after I had been on Vesuvius. 

 The first signs of a torrent that I met with, was near the village of the Madonna 

 deir Arco, and I passed several others between that and the town of Ottaiano ; 

 the one near Trochia, and 2 near the town of Somma, were the most consider- 

 able, and not less than a quarter of a mile in breadth ; and were, when they 

 poured down from the mountain of Somma, from 20 to 30 feet high; it was a 

 liquid glutinous mud, composed of scoriae, ashes, stones, some of them of an 

 enormous size, mixed with trees that had been torn up by the roots. Such 

 torrents were irresistible, and carried all before them; houses, walls, trees, and 

 not less than 4000 sheep and other cattle, had been swept off by the several 

 torrents on that side of the mountain. At Somma a team of 8 oxen, that were 

 drawing a large timber tree, had been carried off from thence, and were never 

 more heard of. The appearance of these torrents, when I saw them, was like 

 that of all other torrents in mountainous countries, except that what had been 

 mud was become a perfect cement, on which nothing less than a pick-axe could 

 make any impression. The vineyards and cultivated lands were here much more 

 ruined; and the limbs of the trees much more torn by the weight of the ashes, 

 than those which I have already described on the sea side of the volcano. 



I saw several houses on the road, in my way to the town of Somma, with 

 their roofs beaten in by the weight of the ashes. In the town of Somma, I 

 found 4 churches and about 70 houses without roofs, and full of ashes. The 

 great damage on this side of the mountain, by the fall of the ashes and the tor- 

 rents, happened on the 18th, IQth, and 20th of June, and on the 12th of July. 

 I heard but of 3 lives that had been lost at Somma by the fall of a house. The 

 19th, the ashes fell so thick at Somma, that unless a person kept in motion, he 

 was soon fixed to the ground by them. This fall of ashes was accompanied also 

 with loud reports, and frequent flashes of the volcanic lightning, so that, sur- 



