85 
the late Eruption of Mount Vesuvius. 
tion, was produced by the mixture of the inflammable and de- 
phlogisticated air, according to experimentsunade by Doctor 
Priestley and Monsieur Lavoisier. 
By the time that the lava had reached the sea, between five 
and six o'clock in the morning of the 16th, Vesuvius was so com- 
pletely involved in darkness, that we could no more discern the 
violent operation of nature that was going on there, and so it 
remained for several days; but the dreadful noise we heard at 
times, and the red tinge on the clouds over the top of the 
mountain, were evident signs of the activity of the fire under- 
neath. The lava ran but slowly at Torre del Greco after it 
had reached the sea ; and on the 17th of June in the morn- 
ing, when I went in my boat to visit that unfortunate town, 
its course was stopped, excepting that at times a little rivulet 
of liquid fire issued from under the smoking scoriae into the 
sea, and caused a hissing noise, and a white vapour smoke ; at 
other times, a quantity of large scoriae were pushed off the 
surface of the body of the lava into the sea, discovering that 
it was red hot under that surface ; and even to this day the 
centre of the thickest part of the lava that covers the town re- 
tains its red heat. The breadth of the lava that ran into the 
sea, and has formed a new promontory there, after having de- 
stroyed the greatest part of the town of Torre del Greco, 
having been exactly measured by the Duke della Torre, is 
of English feet 1204. Its height above the sea is 12 feet, and 
as many feet under water; so that its whole height is 24 feet; 
it extends into the sea 626 feet. I observed that the sea water 
was boiling as in a cauldron, where it washed the foot of this 
new formed promontory ; and although I was at least an hun- 
dred yards from it, observing that the sea smoked near my 
