Sir william Hamilton’s Account , &c. 43 
and precifion, as have rendered that author’s former pub- 
lications upon the fubjedt of Mount Vefuvius fo univer- 
fally and defervedly efteemed. 
Such a publication, executed with magnificence in the 
royal printing office, may, perhaps, render every other 
account of the late eruption fuperfluous : neverthelefs, I 
fhould think myfelf in fome degree guilty of a neglect 
towards the Royal Society, who have done fo much ho- 
nour to my former communications, if I did not, through 
the refpedtable canal of its worthy prefident, and my 
good friend, limply relate to them fuch remarkable cir- 
cumftances as attended the late tremendous explofions of 
Mount Vefuvius, and as either came immediately under 
my own infpedtion, or have been related to me by fiich 
good authority as cannot be called in queftion. 
Since the great eruption of 1 767, of which I had the 
honour of giving a particular account to the Royal So- 
ciety, Vefuvius has never been free from fmoke, nor ever 
many months without throwing up red-hot fcorise, 
which, increafing to a certain degree, were ufually fol- 
lowed by a current of liquid lava, and except in the 
eruption of 1777, thofe lavas broke out nearly from the 
fame fpot, and ran much in the fame direction, as that of 
the famous eruption of 1767. 
G 2 No 
