ABOUT VOLCANOS AND EARTHQUAKES. 23 



the buildings appeared among the modern vineyards; 

 and led to excavations, which were easy, the ashes being 

 light and loose. And there you now may walk through 

 the streets, enter the houses, and find the skeletons of 

 their inmates, some in the very act of trying to escape. 

 Nothing can be more strange and striking. 



(30.) Since that time Vesuvius has been frequently 

 but very irregularly in eruption. The next after Pom- 

 peii was in the year 202, under Severus: and in 472 

 occurred an eruption so tremendous that all Europe was 

 covered by the ashes, and even Constantinople thrown 

 into alarm. This may seem to savour of the marvellous ; 

 but before I have done, I hope to show that it is 

 not beyond what we know of the power of existing 

 volcanos. 



(31.) I shall not, of course, occupy attention with a 

 history of Vesuvius, but pass at once to the eruption of 

 1779, one of the most interesting on record, from the 

 excellent account given of it by Sir William Hamilton, 

 who was then resident at Naples as our Minister, and 

 watched it throughout with the eye of an artist as well 

 as the scrutiny of a philosopher. 



(32.) In 1767, there had been a considerable erup- 

 tion, during which Pliny's account of the great pine-like, 

 flat-topped, spreading mass of smoke had been superbly 

 exemplified ; extending over the Island of Capri, which 

 is twenty-eight miles from Vesuvius. The showers of 

 ashes, the lava currents, the lightnings, thunderings, and 

 earthquakes were very dreadful ; but they were at once 

 brought to a close when the mob insisted that the head 



