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CH.XXIV.] 



ERUPTION OF MONTE NUOVO. 



609 



others leading an ass, loaded with their frightened family, 

 towards Naples; others carrying quantities of birds, of various 

 sorts, that had fallen dead at the beginning of the eruption ; 

 hers, again, with fish which they had found, and which were 



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to be met with in plenty on the shore, the sea having left 

 them dry for a considerable time. I accompanied Signor 

 Moramaldo to behold the wonderful effects of the eruption. 

 The sea had retired on the side of Baue, abandoning a con- 

 siderable tract, and the shore appeared almost entirely dry, 

 from the quantity of ashes and broken pumice-stones thrown 

 up by the eruption. I saw two springs in the newly dis- 

 covered ruins ; one before the house that was the Queen's, of 

 hot and salt water/ &c. 



So far Falconi : the other account is by Pietro Giacomo di 

 Toledo which begins thus : — ' It is now two years since this 

 province of Campagna has been afflicted w T ith earthquakes, 

 the country about Puzzuoli much more so than any other 

 parts : but on the 27 th and the 28th of the month of September 

 last, the earthquakes did not cease day or night in the town 

 of Puzzuoli : that plain which lies between Lake Avernus, 



Monte 



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the same time the sea, immediately adjoining the plain, dried 

 up about two hundred paces, so that the fish were left on the 

 sand a prey to the inhabitants of Puzzuoli. At last, on the 

 29th of the same month, about two o'clock in the night, the 

 earth opened near the lake, and discovered a horrid mouth, 

 from which were vomited furiously smoke, fire, stones, and 

 mud, composed of ashes, making at the time of its opening 

 a noise like the loudest thunder. The stones which followed 

 were by the flames converted to pumice, and some of these 

 were larger than an ox. The stones went about as high as a 

 cross-bow can carry, and then fell down, sometimes on the 

 edge, and sometimes into the mouth itself. The mud was 

 of the colour of ashes, and at first very liquid, then by de- 

 grees less so, and in such quantities, that in less than twelve 

 hours, with the help of the above-mentioned stones, a moun- 

 tain was raised of 1,000 paces in height. Not only Puzzuoli 

 and the neighbouring country was full of this mud, but the 



vol. i. 



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