78 Sir William Hamilton’s Account of 
marks it has left on the ground, and by the ftones which 
it has pounded to atoms under its prodigious weight. 
When we confider the enormous fize and weight of fuch 
. 
a folid mafs, thrown at leait a quarter of a mile clear of 
the mouth of the volcano, we can but admire the won- 
derful powers of nature, of which, being fo very feldom 
within the reach of human inflection, we are in general 
too apt to judge upon much too fmall a feale. 
Another folid block of ancient lava, fixty-fix feet in 
circumference, and nineteen feet high, being nearly of a 
lpherical drape, was thrown out at the fame time, and lies 
near the former. This done, which has the marks of 
having been rounded, nay almoft polidred, by continual 
rolling in torrents, or on the fea-diore, and which yet has 
been fo undoubtedly thrown out of the volcano, may be 
the fubjedt of curious fpeculations (x K Another block of 
folid lava that was thrown much farther, and lies in the 
valley between the cone of Vefuvius and the Hermitage, 
is dxteen feet high, and ninety-two feet in circumfe- 
rence, though it plainly appears, by the large fragments 
that lie round, and were detached from it by the drock 
(x) Or may not this flons be a fpherical volcanic bafalt, fuch as one of 
forty-five feet in circumference, deferibed by Monf. faujas de st. fond, in 
p. 155. of his curious book on the fubjefl of extinguifhed volcanos? 
of 
