[•* 4 ° ] 
chiefly the buildings. That it was not a fudden over- 
whelming, and that the inhabitants had time to 
efcape with their lives, tho’ not with their goods, is 
proved, by their not finding dead bodies, where they 
have hitherto dug. . It is faid, fome human bones 
were found, tho’ few ; which perhaps might belong 
to fome miferable bedridden wretch or other, who 
could not efcape, or of a perfon dying fuddenly thro' 
frightj which I think is not difficult to imagine, 
when one confiders what a fcene of horror they muff 
0 
have had before their eyes. 
Very little money or plate has been found, or any 
other portable thing of great value ; which I think is 
another proof, that the inhabitants were not deftroy’d. 
I doubt not, but before the violent eruption came 
on, the people for fome days might perceive fuch 
tokens and figns, as could not but alarm them, and 
put them on their guard. 
At the eruption, which happen’d in 1737, before 
it burft forth for fome days, the inhabitants of Por- 
tici, and the adjacent villages, all retired ; being by 
fome figns apprifed of the event. And I have been 
affured, that even for feven years before this laff 
eruption, they were under daily apprehenfions of it) 
but more fo for the laft four months of that time, 
as the mountain then fcarce voided any fmoke at all, 
and continual rumblings were heard from the body 
of the mountain, even at a great diftance. The tor- 
rent of burning matter at this eruption took its courfe 
the oppofite way from Portici or Herculaneum, and, 
as it happen'd, no village was damaged thereby. A 
convent of Carmelite friers, that flood in irs paflage, 
had a fhare of it j but what it moff deftroyed were 
corn-fields, 
