[ ] 
** plain covered with afhes : in this plain were three 
“ little pools, placed in a triangular form, one to- 
“ wards the Ealf, of hot water, corrofive and bitter 
“ beyond nieafure ; another towards the Welf, af 
‘‘ water falter than that of the fea j the third of hot 
“ water, that had no particular tafle.” 
The great increafe of the cone of Vefuvius, from 
that time to this, naturally induces one to conclude, 
that the whole of the cone was raifed in the like 
manner, and that the part of Vefuvius, called Som- 
ma, which is now confidered as a diftinft mountain 
from it, was compofed in the fame manner. This may 
plainly be perceived by examining its interior and ex- 
terior form, and the flrata of lava and burnt matter 
of which it is compofed. The ancients, in defcribing 
Vefuvius, never mention two mountains. Strabo, 
Dio, Vitruvius, all agree, that Vefuvius, in their time, 
fliewed figns of having formerly erupted, and the firft 
compares the crater on its top to an amphitheatre. 
The mountain now called Somma was, I believe, 
that which the ancients called Vefuvius j its outfide 
form is conical, its inlide, inftead of an amphitheatre, 
is now like a great theatre. I fuppofe the eruption 
in Pliny’s time to have thrown down that part of 
the cone next the fea, which would naturally have 
left it in its prefent ftate, and that the conical moun- 
tain, or exifting Vefuvius, has been raifed by the 
fucceeding eruptions: all my obfervations confirm 
this opinion.. I have feen antient lavas in the plain 
on the other fide of Somma, which could never have 
proceeded from the prefent Vefuvius. Serao, a 
celebrated phyfician now living at Naples, in the 
introduction of his account of the eruption of Vefu- 
vius 
