the late Eruption of Mount Vesuvius. 103 
The darkness occasioned by the fall of the 'ashes in the 
Campagna Felice extended itself, and varied, according to the 
prevailing winds. On the 19th of June it was so dark at 
Caserta, which is 15 miles from Naples, as to oblige the in- 
habitants to light candles at mid-day ; and one day during the 
eruption, the darkness spread over Beneventum, which is 30 
miles from Vesuvius. 
The Archbishop of Taranto, in a letter to Naples, and dated 
from that city the 18th of June, said, “ We are involved in a 
“ thick cloud of minute volcanic ashes, and we imagine that 
“ there must be a great eruption either of Mount Etna, or of 
“ Stromboli/’ The bishop did not dream of their having pro- 
ceeded from Vesuvius, which is about 250 miles from Taranto. 
We have had accounts also of the fall of the ashes during the late 
eruption at the very extremity of the province of Lecce, which 
is still farther off; and we have been assured likewise, that those 
clouds were replete with electrical matter : at Martino, near Ta- 
ranto, a house was struck and much damaged by the lightning 
from one of these clouds. In the accounts of the great erup- 
tion of Vesuvius in 1631, mention is made of the extensive 
progress of the ashes from Vesuvius, and of the damage done 
by the ferilli, or volcanic lightning, which attended them in 
their course. 
I must here mention a very extraordinary circumstance in- 
deed, that happened near Sienna in the Tuscan state, about 18 
hours after the commencement of the late eruption of Vesu- 
vius on the 15th of June, although that phasnomenon may have 
no relation to the eruption ; and which was communicated to 
me in the following words by the Earl of Bristol, bishop of 
Derry, in a letter dated from Sienna, July 12th, 1794 : “ 
