84 Sir William Hamilton's Account of 
side of the mountain, had reached the sea, and was running 
into it, having overwhelmed, burnt, and destroyed the greatest 
part of Torre del Greco, the principal stream of lava having 
taken its course through the very centre of the town. We ob- 
served from Naples, that when the lava was in the vineyards 
in its way to the town, there issued often, and in different parts 
of it, a bright pale flame, and very different from the deep red 
of the lava ; this was occasioned by the burning of the trees 
that supported the vines. Soon after the beginning of this 
eruption, ashes fell thick at the foot of the mountain, all the 
way from Portici to the Torre del Greco ; and what is remark- 
able, although there were not at that time any clouds in the 
air, except those of smoke from the mountain, the ashes were 
wet, and accompanied with large drops of water, which, as I 
have been well assured, were to the taste very salt ; the road, 
which is paved, was as wet as if there had been a heavy 
shower of rain. Those ashes were black and coarse, like the 
sand of the sea shore, whereas those that fell there, and at 
Naples some days after, were of a light-grey colour, and as 
fine as Spanish snuffj or powdered bark. They contained 
many saline particles ; as I observed, when I went to the town 
of Torre del Greco on the 17th of June, that those ashes that 
lay on the ground, exposed to the burning sun, had a coat of 
the whitest powder on their surface, which to the taste was 
extremely salt and pungent. In the printed account of the 
late eruption by Emanuel Scotti, doctor of physic and pro- 
fessor of philosophy in the university of Naples, he supposes 
(which appears to be highly probable) that the water which 
accompanied the fall of the ashes at the beginning of the erup- 
