170 



1797. Having reached half the height of the 

 cone, he had a fall, and rolled down as far as the 

 small plain of Rambleta ; happily a heap of 

 lava, covered with snow, hindered him from 

 rolling farther with accelerated velocity. I have 

 been told, that in Switzerland, a traveller was 

 suffocated by rolling down the declivity of the 

 Col de Balme, over the compact turf of the Alps. 



When we gained the summit of the Piton, we 

 were surprised to find scarcely room enough to 

 seat ourselves conveniently. We were stopped 

 by a small circular wall of porphyritic lava, with 

 base of pitchstone, which concealed from us the 

 view of the crater *. The west wind blew with 

 such violence that we could scarcely stand. It 

 was eight in the morning, and we were frozen 

 with the cold, though the thermometer kept a 

 little above the freezing point. For a long time 



Mr. de la Jumeliere asserts, in a paper printed in the Mo- 

 niteur, that he found, by geometrical measurement, the height 

 of Vesuvius 597 toises. It were to be wished, that he had 

 published the detail of his operations. Our measurements 

 give 606 toises (1181 metres) for the most elevated brink of 

 the crater 5 535 toises (1042 metres) for the lower brink; 

 370 toises (721 metres) for the foot of the cone of ashes $ and 

 302 toises (588 metres) for the hermitage of San Salvador. 

 Such was the state of Vesuvius a short time before the 

 eruption in the year 1805, in which the lava made a breach 

 in the brink of the crater on the side of Torre del Greco. 



* La Caldera, or the caldron of the Peak, a denomination 

 which recals to mind the Oules of the Pyrenees. Ramond, 

 Voy. au Mont-Perdu, p. 235. 



