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of the volcano; and here the roaring grew exceeding loud and terrible as we approached. I observed 
a mixture of colours in the cloud, above the crater, green, yellow, red, blue There was likewise a 
ruddy dismal light in the air, over that tract where the burning river flowed. These circumstances 
set off and augmented by the horror of the night, made a scene the most uncommon and astonishing I 
ever saw; which still increased as we approached the burning river. Imagine a vast torrent o lqui 
fire, rolling from the top, down the side of the mountain, and wuth irresistible fury bearing down and 
consuming vines, olives, and houses; and divided into different channels, according to the inequalities 
of the mountain. The largest stream seemed half a mile broad at least, and five miles long. I walked 
so far before my companions up the mountain, along the side of the river of fire, that I was obliged to 
retire in great haste, the sulphureous steam having surprised me, and almost taken away my breath. 
During our return, which was about three o’clock in the morning, the roaring of the mountain was 
heard all the way, while we observed it throwing up huge spouts of fire and burning stones, which 
falling, resembled the stars in a rocket. Sometimes I observed two or three distinct columns of flame, 
and sometimes one only that was large enough to fill the whole crater. These burning columns, and 
fiery stones, seemed to be shot a thousand feet perpendicular above the summit of the volcano! and in 
this manner the mountain continued raging for six or eight days alter. On the eighteenth of the same 
month the whole appearance ended, and the mountain remained perfectly quiet, without any visible 
smoke or flame.” 
But the latest and clearest account of this most formidable phenomenon we have from the late Envoy 
Sir William Hamilton. He begins with remarking, “ That the frequent slight eruptions of lava 
for some years past had issued from near the summit, and ran in small channels in different directions 
dowm the flanks of the mountain, and from running in covered channels, had often an appearance as 
if they came immediately out of the sides of Vesuvius, but such lavas had not sufficient force to reach 
the cultivated parts at the foot of the mountain. In the year 1779, the whole quantity of the lava in 
fusion having been at once thrown up with violence out of the crater of Vesuvius, and a great part of 
it falling, and cooling on its cone, added much to the solidity of the walls of this huge natural chim¬ 
ney, and had not of late years allowed of a sufficient discharge of lava to calm that fermentation, 
which by the subterraneous noises heard at times, and by the explosions of scorire and ashes, was 
known to exist within the bowels of the volcano; so that the eruptions of late years, before this last, 
were simply from the lava having boiled over the crater, the sides being sufficiently strong to confine 
it, and oblige it to rise and overflow. The mountain had been remarkably quiet for seven months be¬ 
fore the late eruption, nor did the usual smoke issue from its crater, but at times it emitted small clouds 
of smoke that floated in the air in the shape of little trees. 
SIGNS. 
It was remarked by the Father Antonio di Petrizzi, a capuchin friar (who printed an account of 
the late eruption) from his convent close to the unfortunate town of Torre del Greco, that for some 
days preceding this eruption a thick vapour was seen to surround the mountain, about a quarter of a 
mile beneath its crater, as it was remarked by him, and others at the same time, that both the sun and 
the moon had often an unusual reddish cast. 
The w atei of the great fountain at Forre del Greco began to decrease some days before the erup¬ 
tion, so that the wheels of a corn-mill, worked by that water, moved very slowly; it was necessary 
in all the othei wells of the town and its neighbourhood to lengthen the ropes daily, in order to reach 
at the water; and some of the wells became quite dry. Although most of the inhabitants were sensi¬ 
ble of this phenomenon, not one of them seems to have suspected the true cause of it. Eight days 
also before the eruption, a man and two boys, being in a vineyard above Torre del Greco (and pre¬ 
cisely on the spot where one of the new mouths opened, whence the principal current of lava that 
destroyed the town issued) were much alarmed by a sudden puff of smoke which issued from the earth 
close to them, and was attended with a slight explosion. 
Had this circumstance, with that of the subterraneous noises heard at Resina for two days before 
the eruption (with the additional one of the decrease of water in the wells) been communicated at the 
time, it would have required no great foresight to have been certain that an eruption of the volcano 
was near at hand, and that its force was directed particularly towards that part of the mountain. 
