290 ON THE BORACIC ACID OF CENTRAL ITALY. 



that the noise sometimes resembled a hundred bellows, as if Vulcan 

 himself were hard at work, while flames issued forth at night after very 

 hot days. Though he saw no fire, the vapour served as a warning to 

 him to keep at a considerable distance ; but before long he came upon 

 more vapour vents, or soffioni, and little lagoni, or ponds of muddy blue 

 waters, boiling vehemently, the imprisoned gases producing bubbles in- 

 creasing in size till sufficiently large to cause them to burst. Dense vapours 

 smelling strongly of rotten eggs, rose from the lagoni, and ascended to 

 a considerable height into the atmosphere. The ground on which he 

 stood was soft and crumbled under his feet ; the decomposed rocks, 

 as well as some of the efflorescent minerals, were new to him, and 

 became the subject of many curious speculations. The whole of the 

 valley was apparently studded with such lagoons, an attempt to 

 define the number of which would be impossible, connected as they 

 were in many places by cross fissures and superficial cracks. 

 Not a tree was visible throughout the extent of the valley ; 

 the opening of a new fissure would be the signal for the destruction 

 of all neighbouring shrubs, scorched by the subterranean heat. Occa- 

 sionally, he was told, the lagoni would be overcharged by the rain, and 

 their contents flow into the Possera, where the heat would immediately 

 kill all the fish for a considerable distance down its course, the density 

 of the atmosphere in cloudy weather pressing on the columns of vapour, 

 causing them to lie closer to the ground and spread themselves 

 horizontally, while the grumbling sounds in the bowels of the earth 

 redoubled in fury. Passing on towards Castelnuovo the same lagoons were 

 abundant, but of smaller dimensions, and according to tradition they 

 had increased in number ; on the other hand old lagoons dried up, only 

 emitting steam at intervals. 



A farm house near Castelnuovo, built 200 years before, had been 

 suddenly undermined, a fumacchio, or incipient lagoon, having uncere- 

 moniously made its appearance in the kitchen, rapidly assuming the 

 dimensions of a true lagoon. The inhabitants were utterly defenceless, 

 and bade adieu to their ancestral tenement, the stone walls of which 

 were soon attacked by the corroding influence of the vapours, and 

 speedily destined, as our traveller truly predicted, to crumble to pieces. 

 Within certain limits fertile fields were subject to be laid waste, and 

 poisonous gases escaped, which had on several occasions proved fatal ; 

 thus he relates how a swineherd in charge of forty pigs had been over- 

 taken by the noxious gases ; all the poor animals were killed but one. 

 Another man, who was working in an alabaster pit, was suddenly over- 

 powered by the escape of mephitic gas through the marls, and cried 

 loudly for help to his fellow at the mouth of the shaft ; while he was 

 being hauled up he was stifled by oppression of the lungs, and fell life- 

 less to the bottom. Should any luckless wight approach a lagoon too 

 closely he would stand a chance of sinking into a quagmire, or losing 



