THE ERUPTION OF MOUNT VESUVIUS, 

 APRIL 7-8, 1906 



By Thomas Augustus Jaggar, Jr. 

 Assistant Professor of Geology, Harvard University 



THE writer's first near view of the 

 volcano after the eruption of 

 this year was on the afternoon 

 of April 24, when he took his way to- 

 ward Dr Matteuci's observatory. The 

 electric train was pushing slowly with its 

 cogged wheels upward toward the ob- 

 servatory station ; beyond that point the 

 road was destroyed. The fields outside 

 of Naples showed one or two inches of 

 dust, brown, gray, and gray-green, but 

 most of the vegetable gardens had been 

 cleared of it. A little farther the pines 

 and palms were heavily loaded, with sand, 



as in a snowstorm. It was three inches 

 deep on the walls. It had drifted in places 

 to a depth of two or three feet. On 

 nearing the observatory the lava fields of 

 1872 and 1898 were found buried under 

 5 or 6 inches of sand and dust, which 

 formed a heavy mantle, but not sufficient 

 to wholly disguise the slaggy contortions 

 beneath. The whole cone of Vesuvius 

 became cleared of clouds in the course of 

 the afternoon and it was seen to be 

 covered with straight sand slides of 

 whitish-gray color which occasionally 

 slipped downward as on the steeper 



Looking Down into the New Crater of Vesuvius, April 25, 1906 



