[ 26 ] 
feet of the top. On which one Mr. Vcrnet (on 
whofe judgment Mr. Jamineau could rely) pro- 
nounced, that there muft be foon an eruption from 
the fides, or an overflowing at the top. Accordingly, 
on tuefday the third of December, at night, after a 
little fhaking, which was not felt above two or three 
miles off, an opening burfl: on the eaflern fide of the 
mountain ; but the matter foon ceafed running from 
this orifice, and burfl out from a much greater one, 
about two hundred yards below it. From this there 
afterwards overflowed no matter; but the lava has 
run from it within, though very near, the furface, 
to a third furnace, whence the liquid fire now pours 
out. This chanel of fire, after falling from the 
third furnace, with great fury, a few yards, is covered 
by the hard exterior furface of the lava, which cools 
and incrufls on its furface, as its courfe is on a level 
or gently declining ground, till it comes within ten 
yards of the top of a fleep declivity. Here tlie fire 
colleds as in a refervoir, to fupply a cafeade, which 
rufhes down from thence in a channel of more than 
twenty feet wide, and about two hundred yards in 
length, with a fall of at leaft fifty feet, divided upon 
fuch length. After which the flream is lefs rapid, but 
grows wider, and has already forced its courfe for 
four miles from the fource, where it affords a very 
different feene from what it prefented from its firfl 
ei'uption. For there it runs over a country already 
deflroyed ; the cafeade looks like melted gold, and 
tears off large bodies of old lava, which float down 
the flream, till the intenfenefs of the heat lights 
them from the bottom. But, in the lower country, 
the chanel is divided into leffer flreams, running 
with 
