§ 10. ERUPTIONS OF VESUVIUS. 821 



with the most tremendous fury, the ejected stones inter- 

 mingling in the air. 



" If any person could accurately fancy the effect of 

 500,000 sky-rockets darting up at once to a height of three 

 or four thousand feet, and then falling back in the shape of 

 red-hot balls, shells, and large rocks of fire, he might have 

 an idea of a single explosion of this burning mountain ; but 

 it is doubtful whether any imagination can conceive the 

 effect of one hundred of such explosions in the space of five 

 minutes, or of twelve hundred or more in the course of an 

 hour, as we saw them ! Yet this was only a part of the 

 sublime spectacle before us. 



" On emerging from the darkness, occasioned by the 

 smaller crater being hidden by the large one, as we passed 

 round to the other side of the mountain, we found the 

 whole scene illuminated by the river of lava, which gushed 

 out of the valley formed by the craters and the hill on 

 which we now stood. The fiery current was narrow at its 

 source, apparently not more than a few feet in breadth ; 

 but it quickly widened, and soon divided into two streams, 

 one of which was at least forty feet wide, and the other 

 somewhat less : between them was a sort of island, below 

 which they reunited into one broad river, that was at 

 length lost sight of in the deep windings and ravines of the 

 mountain." * 



The streams of lava issue with great velocity, and are in 

 a state of perfect fusion ; but as they cool on the surface, 

 they crack, and the matter becomes vesicular, or porous ; 

 at a considerable distance from their source, they resemble a 

 heap of scorias, or cinders, from an iron-foundry, rolling slowly 

 along, and falling, with a rattling noise, one over the other. 



In an eruption witnessed by Sir W. Hamilton, jets of 

 liquid lava, mingled with stones and scoriae, were thrown 

 up to a height of ten thousand feet. 



* From the Saturday Magazine. 

 3 h 2 



