the late Eruption of Mount Vesuvius. 113 
extent in Europe, in spite of the variety of dangers attending 
such a situation. 
With the help of the drawings that accompany this account 
of the late eruption of Vesuvius, and which I can assure you 
to be faithful representations of what we have seen, I flatter 
myself I shall have enabled you to have a clear idea of it ; and 
I flatter myself also, that the communication of such a variety 
of well attested phaenomena as, have attended this formidable 
eruption, may not only prove acceptable, but useful to the cu- 
rious in natural history. 
I have the honour to be. See. 
WM. HAMILTON. 
IN a subsequent letter from Sir William Hamilton to Sir 
Joseph Banks, dated Castel-a-mare, anciently Stabice , Sept. 2, 
1 794, are the two following remarks to be added to this paper. 
1 . Within a mile of this place the mofete are still very active, 
and particularly under the spot where the ancient town of Sta- 
biae was situated. The 24th of August, a young lad~by accident 
falling into a well there that was dry, but full of the mephitic 
vapour, was immediately suffocated ; there were- no signs of 
any hurt from the fall, as the well was shallow. This cir- 
cumstance called to my mind the death of the elder Pliny, 
who most probably lost his life by the same sort of mephitic 
vapours, on this very spot, and which are active after great 
eruptions of Vesuvius. 
2. Mr. James, a British merchant, who now lives in this 
neighbourhood, assured me that on Tuesday night, the 17th of 
MDCCXCV, O 
