of Dust and Ashes. 325 
force of the outburst scattering them all round the 
mountain. 
On the 29th September, 1538, during the formation of 
Monte Nuove, pumice fell 30 leagues round the mountain, 
and ashes in Calabria 150 miles off.* 
The Earl of Winchelsea says, that Etna in 1669 threw 
out “vast stones, some of them 300 lbs. weight, which 
being (as it were) shot through the air, fell several miles 
distant from the place ; whilst the whole air was filled 
with smoke, burning cinders and ashes, which fell like a 
fiery rain upon the country. 1 
In the eruption of 1720, near Terceira, whilst the 
island then formed was rising:, a S. E. wind carried ashes 
to an immense distance. 
On the 25th October, 1755, the sky being hazy, as 
before thunder, a black dust like lamp-black, smelling 
strongly of sulphur, came with a S. W. wind, and was 
followed by rain at Scalloway in Shetland ; it also fell 
over Orkney and 25 miles beyond Shetland.^ It was 
ascertained that this was the produce of Kattlagia in Ice¬ 
land, then in eruption.^ 
On the 4th April, 1768, ashes from Cotopaxi fell at 
Ilambuto and Tacunga.|| 
In October, 1783, when Skaptua Jokul, in Iceland, 
was in furious eruption, nearly the whole of the north of 
Europe, particularly Norway, was covered with ashes. 
They fell also over the Scottish isles.5T 
During the eruption of Vesuvius, in 1794, according to 
Sir W. Hamilton**, the ashes were scattered in various 
* Edin. Journal, Jan. 1835, p. 75. 
+ True and Exact Relation, p. 14. 
I Milne, E. N. P. I., xxxi. 101. 
§ Phil. Tran. 1666 ; Polehampton, iv. 161. 
|| Humboldt, i. 118. 
H Whytt in Polehampton, iv. 161. Scrope, &c. 
** Hamilton’s Letters to the Royal Society, p. 34. 
