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llkewire affured. I own, I was greatly pleafed at 
being in this inanner enabled to account fo well for 
the tormation of thefe tufa ftones and the veins of dry 
and loofe burnt matter above them, of which the 
foil of almofl the whole country I am defcribing is 
compofed j and I do not know that any. one has ever^ 
attended to this circumftance, though 1 find that 
many authors, who have defcribed this country, have 
fiilpeded that parts of it were formed by explofion. 
Wherever then this fort of tufa is found, there is 
certainly good authority to fufpedl its having been 
formed in the lame manner as the tufa of this new 
mountain ; for, as I faid before, nature is generally 
uniform in all her operations. 
It is commonly imagined that the new mountain 
rofe out of the Lucrine lake which was deftroyed by 
it; but in the above account, no mention is made of 
the Lucrine lake; it may be fuppofed then, that the 
famous dam, which Strabo and many other ancient 
authors mention to have feparated that lake from the 
fea, had been ruined by time or accident, and that 
the lake became a part of the fea before the explofion 
of 1538. 
If the above defcribed eruption was terrible, that 
which formed the monte Barbaro (or Gauro, as it 
was formerly called), muft have been dreadful in- 
deed. It joins immediately to the new mountain, 
which in lliape and compofition it exaiflly refembles ; 
but it is at leaf! three times as confiderable. Its crater 
cannot be lefs than fix miles in circumference; the 
plain within the crater, one of the mod; fertile fpots 
1 ever fiiw, is about four miles in circumference; 
there is no entrance to this plain, but one on the 
EafI 
