10 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 
At the University of Naples Professor Palmieri showed me his 
ingenious apparatus for recording any movements of the nature 
of earthquakes, but I took no notes of the instruments at the 
time, and cannot now recall the details. The University contains 
some very fine mineral specimens, and among these is the largest 
mass of rock crystal probably in the world. One prism must be 
7 or 8 feet in girth. 
I ascended Vesuvius, and had the benefit of the funicular rail- 
way for the last and most difficult part of the way. The volcano 
being tolerably quiescent, we were able to stand on the outer rim 
of the crater and watch the explosions of steam and showers of 
scoria from the inner cone. So long as we kept on the windward 
side the position was safe and comfortable enough, except that the 
ground was very hot under foot ; but now and again the atmo- 
spheric eddies enveloped us in choking clouds of hot sulphurous 
steam, which could scarcely be breathed. The lava and ashes 
about the old crater were tinged with many and beautiful colours, 
chiefly by sulphur and its compounds ; and at some distance down 
the east side we came upon a stream of fluid lava about 2 feet 
wide, flowing sluggishly at a white heat down to a hollow far 
below us. On returning hot and weary to the upper station of 
the railway, we received the depressing news that the engine had 
stopped for want of water, and there was no help for it but to 
walk or slide down the cone of loose cinders and ashes for 1,000 
yards to the lower station where carriages were waiting. The 
water for the engine had to be brought in carts from the foot of 
the mountain, but tanks were then being constructed for con- 
serving rain-water at the station. 
In passing northwards through Italy I embraced every oppor- 
tunity of visiting collections of philosophical apparatus in the 
various Universities and Scientific Institutions, in order that I 
might expend to the best advantage the money entrusted to me 
for the purchase of apparatus for the University here. At Rome, 
in the commodious new buildings erected for physical science, I 
saw some excellent electrical apparatus and air-pumps, made, 
