iSyg.] during the Last Ten Years . 469 
gran copia. Tra’ soliti cloruri e solfati si e confermato alio 
spettroscopio la presenza dell’ acido borico e del litio.” A 
correspondent of “ La Nature ” writes from Naples on 
January 24 : — “ L’eruption du Vesuve vient de recommencer. 
Ce soir a 7 heures 30 minutes, la coulee est superbe, la 
flamme plus vive et le torrent de feu plus anime qu’il ne l’a 
ete pendant toute la periode antecedent. . . L’eruption 
continue au grand cone ; au sortir de ce qu’on appelle ici la 
‘ Fenetre ’ la lave se deverse en deux courants dont l’un suit 
le lit de la coulee anterieure vers Somma, et dont l’autre se 
dirige vers Naples.” No augmention of intensity seems to 
have taken place since the above was written, and the erup- 
tion which commenced last November still justifies Palmieri’s 
appellation of una modesta eruzione. 
A record of the history of Vesuvius during the last decade 
would be very incomplete without reference to a notable 
addition to the literature of the mountain, in the “ Report 
on the Chemical, Mineralogical, and Microscopical Charac- 
ters of the Lavas of Vesuvius from 1631 to 1868,” by Profs. 
Haughton and Hull, printed in the “ Transactions of the 
Royal Irish Academy ” for March, 1876. Herein the au- 
thors have endeavoured to discuss the composition of the 
Vesuvian lavas as a branch of the Indeterminate Analysis, 
founded on what Prof. Haughton calls “ the principle of 
least paste.” These lavas are mainly composed of nine 
minerals, viz., leucite, plagioclase, magnetite, olivine, augite, 
hornblende, mica, nepheline, and sodalite, of known com- 
position, together with an unknown quantity of a paste of 
unknown composition. The objedt of the authors is to 
group the constituents given in the ultimate analysis of the 
lavas into their several compounds ; for example, to say 
how much of the silica exists in leucite, how much in 
augite, and so on. Of course it is well nigh impossible to 
say how the various constituents of lava are grouped in the 
form of different distinct minerals, but we can gain some 
idea of the abundance or scarcity of certain minerals in a 
lava by the microscopic analysis. In applying the principle 
ofleast paste Prof. Haughton has proceeded on the assump- 
tion that “ of the numerous solutions possible that one will 
occur in Nature which involves the largest amount of 
Definite Minerals and the least amount of Indefinite Paste.” 
The following proximate and ultimate analyses will illus- 
trate the result of Prof. Haughton’s work ; — 
