Rowels of the mountain, and probably at 
no small depth, considering the extent or 
those earthquakes, sir W illiam recommend’ 
-ed to the company that was with him, wno 
began to be much alarmed, rather to go and 
view the mountain at some greater distance, 
and in the open air, than to remain in the 
house, which was on the sea-side, and in the 
part of Naples which is nearest and most ex- 
posed to Vesuvius. They accordingly pro- 
ceeded to Posilippo, and viewed the confla- 
gration, now become still more considerable, 
from the sea-side under that mountain ; but 
whether from the eruption having increased, 
or from the loud reports of the volcanic ex- 
plosions being repeated by the mountain be- 
hind them, the noise was much louder and 
more alarming than that they had lieai d in 
their first position, at least a mile neaiei to 
Vesuvius. After some time, about two 
o’clock in the morning of the 16th, it was ob- 
served that the lavas ran in abundance, freely, 
and with great velocity, having made a con- 
siderable progress towards Resina, the town 
which it first" threatened, and that the fiery 
vapours which had been confined had now 
free vent through many parts of a crack of 
more than a mile and a half in length, as was 
evident from the quantity of inflamed matter 
and black smoke, which continued to issue 
from the new mouths. Our author therefore 
concluded that at Naples all danger from 
earthquakes, which had been his greatest air- 
prehension, was totally removed, and he re- 
turned to his former station at bt. Lucia, 
near that city. , , 
During all this time there was not the 
smallest appearance of fire or smoke from the 
crater on the summit of Vesuvius; but the 
black smoke and ashes issuing continually 
from so many new mouths or craters, formed 
au enormous and dense body of clouds over 
the whole mountain, and began to give signs 
4 )f being replete with the electric fluid, by 
exhibiting flashes of that sort of zig-zag 
lightning, which in the volcanic language of 
the country is called ferilli, and which is the 
constant attendant on the most violent eiup- 
tl °Sii- William Hamilton proceeds to remark, 
that during a thirty years residence at 
Naples, and during which time he had been 
witness to many eruptions of Vesuvius, he 
never before saw the cloud of smoke replete 
with the electric fire, except in the two great 
eruptions of 1767, and in that of 1779. ' he 
electric fire, in the year 1779, which played 
constantly within the enormous black cloud 
over the crater of Vesuvius, and seldom 
quitted it, was exactly similar to that which 
is produced, on a very small scale, by the 
conductor of an electrical machine commu- 
nicating with an insulated plate of glass, 
thinly spread over with metallic filings, &c. 
when the electric matter continues to play 
over it in zig-zag lines without quitting the 
surface. He was not sensible of any noise 
attending that operation in 1779; whereas 
the discharge of the electrical matter from 
the volcanic clouds during this eruption, and 
particularly on the second and third days, 
caused explosions like those of the loudest 
thunder ; and indeed the storms raised evi- 
dently by the sole power of the volcano, re- 
sembled in every respect all other thunder- 
storms ; the lightning falling, and destroying 
every thing in its course. 1 he house of 
VOL. II. 
VOLCANO. 
the marquis of Berio at St. Juno, situated 
at the foot of Vesuvius, during one of these 
volcanic storms was struck with lightning, 
which having shattered many doors and win- 
dows, and damaged the furniture, left for 
some time a strong smell of sulphur in the 
rooms it passed through. Out of these gi- 
gantic volcanic clouds, besides the lightning, 
the author adds, he had, with liiany^ others, 
both during this eruption, and in l//9> seen 
balls of fire issue, and sonie of a considerable 
magnitude, which bursting in the air, pro- 
duced nearly the same effect as that from the 
air-balloons in fireworks ; the electric fine, as 
it came out, having the appearance of the 
serpents with which those firework-balloons 
are often filled. The day on which Naples 
was in the greatest danger from the volcanic 
clouds, two small balls of lire, joined to- 
gether by a small link like a chain-shot, tell 
close to his casino at Posilippo ; they sepa- 
rated, and one fell in the vineyard above the 
house, and the other in the sea, so close to it 
that he heard the splash in the water, t he 
abb6 Tata, in his printed account of this 
eruption, mentions an enormous ball of tins 
kind- which flew out of the crater of V esu- 
vius while he was standing on the edge ot it, 
and which burst in the air at some distance 
from the mountain, soon after which he heard 
a noise like the fall of a number of stones, oi 
of a heavy shower ot hail. 
About four o’clock in the morning of the 
a 6th, the crater of Vesuvius began to shew 
signs of being open, by some black smoke 
issuing out ot it ; and at day-break another 
body of smoke, tinged with reel, issued from 
an opening near the crater. On the otliei 
side of the mountain, and opposite the town 
of Ottaiano, it became evident that a new 
mouth had opened, from which a consider- 
able stream of lava issued, and ran wit 
great velocity through a wood, which _i 
burnt ; and having run about three miles in 
a few hours, it stopped before it arrived at 
the vineyards and cultivated lands. 1 he 
crater, and all the conical part of Vesuvius, 
were soon involved in clouds and darkness, 
and remained so for several days , but 
above these clouds, although of a giea 
height, fresh columns of smoke were seen 
from the crater, rising furiously still higher, 
until the whole mass remained in the usual 
form of a pine-tree ; and in that gigantic mass 
of heavy clouds the ferilli, or volcanic light- 
ning, was frequently visible, even in tire daj- 
time. 
About five o’clock in the morning of the 
1 6th, the lava which had first broken out 
from the several new mouths on the south 
side of the mountain, had reached the sea, 
and was running into it, having overwhelm- 
ed, burnt, and destroyed, the greatest part ot 
Torre del Greco, the principal stream ot 
lava having taken its course through the veiy 
centre of the town. 
Soon after the beginning of this eruption, 
ashes fell thick at the foot of the mountain, 
ail the wav from Portici to Torre del Greco ; 
and what is remarkable, although there were 
not at that time any clouds in the air, except 
those of smoke from the mountain, the ashes 
were wet, and accompanied with large drops 
of water, which to the taste were very salt ; the 
road, which is paved, was as wet as if there 
had been a heavy shower ot rain. lhesc 
604 
ashes were black and tcarse, like the sand ot 
the sea-shore ; whereas those which, fell there 
and at Naples some days after, were of a 
light -grey colour, and as fine as Spanish 
snuff,, or powdered bark. They contained 
many saline particles ; and those ashes which 
lay on the ground, exposed to the burning 
sun, had a coat ot the whitest powder on 
their surface, which to the taste was ex. 
tremely salt and pungent. 
By the time that the lava had reached the 
sea, between five and six o’clock in the morn- 
ing of the 16th, Vesuvius was. so completely 
involved in darkness, that the violent opera- 
tion of nature which was going on there 
could no longer be discerned, and so it re- 
mained for several days ; but the dread! ul 
noise, and the red tinge on the clouds over 
the top of the mountain, were evident signs 
of the activity of the fire underneath. The 
lava ran but slowly at Torre del Greco after 
it had reached the sea; and on the 17th of 
June in the morning, its course was stopped ; 
excepting that at times a little rivulet- dr li- 
quid fire issued from under the smoking 
scoria: into the sea, and caused a hissing 
noise, and a white smoke ; at other times a 
quantity of large scoriae were pushed off the 
surface of the body of the lava into the sea, 
discovering; that it was red-hot under that 
surface. Even to the latter end of August 
the centre of the thickest part of the lava that 
covered the town retained its red heat. Tha 
breadth of the lava that ran into the sea, and 
formed a new promontory there, after having 
destroyed the greatest part of the town of 
Torre del Greco, having been exactly mea- 
sured by the duke della Torre, is 12p4 Eng- 
lish feet' Its height above the sea is twelve 
feet, and as many feet under water ; so that 
its whole height is twenty-four feet : it ex- 
tends into the sea 626 feet. '1 he sea-water 
was boiling as in a cauldron, where it washed 
the foot of this new-formed promontory. 
The rapid progress of the lava, however# 
was such, after it had altered its course from 
Resina, which town it first threatened, and 
had joined a fresh lava that issued from one 
of tiie new mouths in a vineyard, about a 
mile from the town, that it ran like a torrent 
over the town of Torre del Greco, allowing 
the unfortunate inhabitants scarcely time to 
save their lives. Their goods and effects 
w„ere totally abandoned ; and indeed several 
of the inhabitants, whose houses had been 
surrounded with lava while they remained in 
them, escaped from them, and saved their 
lives the following day, by coining out of the 
tops of their houses, and walking over the 
scoriae on the surface of the red-hot lava. 
The lava over the cathedral, and in other 
parts of the town, is said to be upwards of 
forty feet in thickness ; the general height of 
the lava during its whole course was about 
twelve feet, and in some parts not less thaw 
a mile, in breadth. 
On Wednesday June 18, the wind having 
for a short space o( time cleared away the 
thick cloud from the top of Vesuvius, it was 
now discovered that a great part ot its ci li- 
ter, particularly on the west side opposite 
Naples, had fallen ; in which it probably did 
about four o’clock in the morning of that 
day, as a violent shock of an earthquake was 
felt at that moment at Resina, and oilier 
parts at the foot of the volcano. The clouds 
