78 Sir William Hamilton’s Account of 
On Sunday the 15th of June, soon after 10 o’clock at night, 
another shock of an earthquake was felt at Naples, but did not 
appear to be quite so violent as that of the 12th, nor did it last 
so long ; at the same moment a fountain of bright fire, at- 
tended with a very black smoke and a loud report, was seen to 
issue, and rise to a great height, from about the middle of the 
cone of Vesuvius ; soon after another of the same kind broke 
out at some little distance lower down ; then, as I suppose by 
the blowing up of a covered channel full of red-hot lava, it had 
the appearance, as if the lava had taken its course directly up 
the steep cone of the volcano. Fresh fountains succeeded one 
another hastily, and all in a direct line tending, for about a 
mile and a half down, towards the towns of Resina and Torre 
del Greco. I could count 15 of them, but I believe there were 
others obscured by the smoke. It seems probable, that all 
these fountains of fire, from their being in such an exact line, 
proceeded from one and the same long fissure down the flanks 
of the mountain, and that the lava and other volcanic matter 
forced its way out of the widest parts of the crack, and formed 
there the little mountains and craters that will be described in 
their proper place. It is impossible that any description can 
give an idea of this Aery scene, or of the horrid noises that 
attended this great operation of nature. It was a mixture of 
the loudest thunder, with incessant reports, like those from a 
numerous heavy artillery, accompanied by a continued hollow 
murmur, like that of the roaring of the ocean during a violent 
storm ; and added to these was another blowing noise, like that 
of the going up of a large flight of sky-rockets, and which 
brought to my mind also that noise which is produced by the 
action of the enormous bellows on the furnace of the Carron 
