124 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



strata must have been of very considerable thick- 

 ness, since they were able to protect the snow 

 against the heat of the central fire which had caused 

 their upheaval. 



Without having seen the volcanic forces in all 

 their intensity, we were able to observe, under cir- 

 cumstances which permitted us to distinguish their 

 most minute particulars, the greater number of the 

 phenomena with regard to which there has been so 

 much discussion. On our return from Sicily, M. 

 Blanchard and myself ascended Mount Vesuvius, 

 and before we had advanced very far on this com- 

 paratively easy excursion, we were fully able to ap- 

 preciate the truth of the remark made by Spallanzani, 

 who observed that, " to those who had seen Etna, 

 Vesuvius must appear like a mere cabinet volcano." 

 As if in justification of the words of this celebrated 

 naturalist, Vesuvius exhibited to us a miniature 

 eruption, which struck us somewhat in the light 

 of a laboratory experiment which we could observe 

 at our leisure in all its various phases and details. 



For the last two years the volcano seems to have 

 been filling up its crater, which is now almost en- 

 tirely full. Forty or fifty feet below the orifice, 

 appeared a crust of black and spongy lava, some- 

 what like a pavement of irregular asphalt, inter- 

 spersed with large blocks of lava, and enclosed by 

 the inner sides of the crater, as by a circular wall. 

 In the middle of this circus, which measured from 

 500 to 600 feet across, there rose a small cone from 



remained thus inflated, and the high projecting eminence has been 

 solidified by time into a naked rock." (Cosmos, Vol. I.) 



