94 Sir William Hamilton’s Account of 
sea side and the Somma side of the mountain, came down 
with a horrid rushing noise ; and some of them, after hav- 
ing forced their way through the narrow gullies of the moun- 
tain, rose to the height of more than 20 feet, and were near 
half a mile in extent. The mud of whicli the torrents were 
composed, being a kind of natural mortar, has completely 
cased up, and ruined for the present, some thousand acres 
of rich vineyards ; for it soon becomes so hard, that nothing 
less than a pick-axe can break it up ; I say for the present, 
as I imagine that hereafter the soil may be greatly improved 
by the quantity of saline particles that the ashes from this 
eruption evidently contain. A gentleman of the British fac- 
tory at Naples, having filled a plate with the ashes that had 
fallen on his balcony during the eruption, and sowed some 
pease in them, assured me that they came up the third day, 
and that they continue to grow much faster than is usual in 
the best common garden soil. 
My curiosity, or rather my wish to gratify that of our re- 
spectable Society, induced me to go upon Mount Vesuvius, as 
soon as I thought I might do it with any degree of prudence, 
which was not until the 30th of June, and then it was attended 
with some risk, as will appear in the course of this narrative. 
The crater of Vesuvius, except at short intervals, had been 
continually obscured by the volcanic clouds ever since the 
16th, and was so this day, with frequent flashes of lightning 
playing in those clouds, and attended as usual with a noise 
like thunder ; and the fine ashes were still falling on Vesuvius, 
but still more on the mountain of Somma. I went up the 
usual way by Resina, attended by my old Cicerone of the 
mountain, Bartolomeo Pumo, with whom I have been 
