leaft lava to be feen, owing, I imagine, to its being 
employed in forcing its way towards the place where 
it burft out the following day. As I had, contrary 
to the opinion of moft people here, foretold the 
approaching eruption a , and had obferved a great 
fermentation in the mountain after the heavy rains, 
which fell the 13th and 14th of October, I was 
not furprifed on the 19th following, at feven of the 
clock in the morning, to perceive from my villa 
every fymptom of the eruption being juft at hand. 
From the top of the little mountain iffiued a thick black 
fmoak, l'o thick that it feemed to have difficulty in 
forcing its way out ; cloud after cloud mounted with 
a hafty lpiral motion, and every minute a volley of 
great lfones were ffiot up to an immenfe height in 
the midll of thefe clouds; by degrees, the fmoak took 
the exadt fhape of a huge pine tree, fuch as Pliny 
the younger defcribed in his letter to Tacitus, where 
he gives an account of the fatal eruption in which 
his uncle periffied b . This column of black fmoak, 
a This plainly appears from the following extract of a letter, 
from the fame gentleman to the prefident, dated Naples, Octo- 
ber 6, 176 7. “ Mount Vefuvius is preparing for another 
“ eruption, or rather a fecond part of the laft, as it has never 
“ been quiet fince the beginning of the year 1765. The lava 
“ already runs over the crater ; and by the quantity of ftones 
“ and afhes, the montagnola has almoft filled the crater, and 
“ has rifen at Icaft 80 feet within thefe laft three months.” 
b Thefe are his words. “ Nubes (incertum procul intuenti- 
“ bus ex quo monte Vefuvium fuifte poftea cognitum eft) orie- 
“ batur, cujus fimilitudinem & forinam, non alia magis arbor, 
li quam pinus exprefterit. Nam longiflimo veleti trunco data 
“ in altum, quibufdam ramis difFundebatur, credo quia reccnti 
4t fpiritu eveefta, dein fenefeente eo deftituta, aut etiam pondere 
“ fuo vidta, in latitudinem evanefeebat : Candida interdum, in- 
“ terdum fordida & maculofa, prout terrain cineremve iuftu- 
“ lerat.” PI in . Lib. VI, Ep. 16. 
after 
