an Eruption of Mount Vefuvius. eg 
Fortunately for us the wind increafing from the S.W. 
quarter, carried back the threatning cloud juft as it had 
reached the city, and began to cccalion great alarm. All 
public diversions ceafed in an inftanf, and the theatres 
being (hut, the doors of the churches were thrown open. 
Numerous proceflions were formed in the ftreets, and wo- 
men and children, with difhevelled heads, filled the air 
with their cries, infilling loudly upon the relics of St. 
Januarius being immediately oppofed to the fury of the 
mountain: in fhort, the populace of this great city began 
to difpiay its ulual extravagant mixture of riot and bi- 
gotry, and if fome fpeedy and well-timed precautions had 
not been taken, Naples would, perhaps, have been in 
more danger of buffering from the irregularities of its 
lower clafs of inhabitants than from the angry volcano. 
But to return to my fubjedt : after the column of fire 
had continued in full force near half an hour, the. erup- 
tion ceafed all at once, and Vefuvius remained fullen and 
iilent. After the dazzling light of the fiery fountain 
mechanics, does honour to his country) told me, tha* having, about half an 
hour after the great eruption had ceafed, held a Leyden bottle, armed with a 
pointed wire, out of his window at Naples, it foon became confiderably charged. 
Whilft the eruption wis in force, its appearance was too alarming to allow one 
to think of luch experiments. 
(n) The light difFufed by this huge column of fire was fo ftrong, that the 
moll minute obje&s could be difeerned clearly within the compafs of ten miles 
or more round the mountain. Mr. morris, an Englifh gentleman, told me, 
that at Sorrento, which is twelve miles from Vefuvius, he read the title page 
of a (?©ok by that volcanic light, 
I 2 
all 
