[ 36 ] ■ 
by the frequency and the violence of them. There 
are fome of thefe ancient lavas not lefs than two 
hundred feet in depth. The mountain of St. Nicola, 
on which there is at prefent a convent of hermits, 
was called oy the ancients Epomeus j it is as high, if 
not higher, than Vefuvius, and appears to me to be 
a fection of the cone of the ancient and principal 
volcano of the ifland, its compofition being all tufa 
or lava. The cells of the convent abovernentioned 
are cut out of the mountain itfelf ; and there you fee 
plainly that its compofition no way differs from the 
matter that covers Herculaneum, and forms the 
monte Nuovo. There is no fign of a crater on the 
top of this mountain, which rifes almofl to a fharp 
point ; time, and other accidents, may be reafonably 
fuppofed to have worn away this diftindtive mark of 
its having been formed by explofion, as I have feen 
to be the cafe in other mountains, formed evidently 
" by explofion, on the flanks of Etna and Vefuvius. 
Strabo, in his 5th book, upon the fubjedl of this 
ifland, quotes Timsus, as having faid, that, a little 
before his time, a mountain in the middle of Pithe- 
cufa, called Epomeus, was fliook by an earthquake, 
and vomited flames. 
There are many other rifing grounds in this ifland^ 
that, from the nature of their compofition, rnufl 
lead one to think the fame as to their origin. Near 
the village of Cafliglione, there is a mountain formed 
furely by an explofion of a much later date, having 
preferved its conical form and crater entire, and pro- 
ducing as yet but a flendcr vegetation : there is no 
account, however, of the date of this eruption. 
Nearer the town oflfchia, which is on the fea fhore, 
at 
