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Eaft fide ot the mountain, made evidently by art ; In 
this fedlion you have an opportunity of feeing that 
the matter, of which the mountain is compofed is 
exa6tly fimilar to that of the monte Nuovo. It was 
this mountain that produced (as fome authors have 
fuppofed) the celebrated Falernian wine of the 
ancients. 
Cuma, allowed to have been the mofi: ancient city 
o{ Italy, was built on an eminence, which is like- 
wife compofed of iufa^ and may be naturally fuppofed 
a fedtion of the cone formed by a very ancient ex- 
lake of Avernns fills the bottom of the crater 
of a mountain, undoubtedly produced by explofion, 
and whofe interior and exterior form, as well as the 
matter of which it is compofed, exadlly refemble the 
monte Barbaro and monte Nuovo. At that part of 
the bafis of this mountain which is wafhed by the 
fea of the bay of Puzzole, the fand is ftill very hot, 
though conftantly walked by the waves; and into the 
cone of the mountain, near this hot fand, a narrow 
palfage of about loo paces in length is cut, and leads 
to a fountain of boiling water, which, though brack- 
ilh, boils filli and flefli without giving them any bad 
tafte or quality, as I have experienced more than 
once. This place is called Nero’s* bath, and is ftill 
made ufe of for a fudatory, as it was by the ancients; 
the ftream that rifes from the hot fountain above- 
mentioned, confined in the narrow fubterraneous 
palfage, foon produces a violent perfpiration upon the 
patient who fits therein. This bath is reckoned a great 
fpecifick in that diftemper which is fuppofed to have 
6 made 
plofion, 
The 
