98 Sir William Hamilton's Account of 
the hot vapour issues out of the fresh lavas), found to his great 
surprise an exceeding cold wind issue from a fissure very near 
the hot fumaroli abovementioned upon his leg ; I put my hand 
to the spot, and found the same: but it did not surprise me, as 
before on Mount Vesuvius, on the mountain of Somma, on 
Mount Etna, and in the island of Ischia, I had met with, on 
particular spots, the like currents of extreme cold air issuing 
from beneath the ancient lavas, and which, being constant to 
those spots, are known by the name of ventoroli. In a vine- 
yard notin the same line with the new-formed mountains just 
described, but in a right line from them, at the distance of 
little more than a mile from Torre del Greco, are three or 
four more of these new-formed mountains with craters, out of 
which the lava flowed, and by uniting with the streams that 
came from the higher mouths, and adding to their heat and 
fluidity, enabled the whole current to make so rapid a pro- 
gress over the unfortunate town, as scarcely to allow its inha- 
bitants sufficient time to escape with their lives. The rich 
vineyards belonging to the Torre del Greco, and which pro- 
duced the good wine called Lacrima Christi, that have been 
buried, and are totally destroyed by this lava, consisted, as I 
have been informed, of more than three thousand acres ; but 
the destruction of the vineyards by the torrents of mud and 
water at the foot of the mountain of Somma, is much more 
extensive. 
I visited that part of the country also a few days after I had 
been on Vesuvius, not being willing to relate to you any one 
circumstance of the late formidable eruption but what I had 
reason to believe was founded on truth. The first signs of a 
torrent that I met with, was near the village of the Madonna 
