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Portici was once in some danger, liad not the lava taken a different course when it was only a mile 
and a half from it; towards night, the lava slackened. 
Thursday twenty-second, about ten of the clock in the morning, the same thundering noise began 
again, but with more violence than the preceding days; the oldest men declaied, they had ne\er heard 
the like; and, indeed, it was very alarming: we were in expectation every moment of some dire 
calamity. The ashes, or rather small cinders, showered down so fast, that the people in the streets 
were obliged to use umbrellas, or flap their hats; these ashes being veiy offensive to the eyes. The 
tops of the houses, and the balconies, were covered above an inch thick with these cinders. Ships at 
sea, twenty leagues from Naples, were also covered with them, to the gieat astonishment of the 
sailors. 
It is worthy of observation, that at this time there were no clouds in the air, yet these ashes 
were wet, and accompanied with a salt taste. Hence Hr. Emanuel Scotti, Professor of Philosophy 
in the University of Naples, supposes, in his printed account of this eruption, that this watei is the 
product of an explosion of inflammable and oxygen airs. 
M TN A. 
This mountain is divided into three distinct regions, called La Regione Culta: the Fertile Region; 
La Regione Sylvosa, the Woody Region; and La Regione Deserta, the Barren Region. 
The three are as different, both in climate and productions, as the three zones of the earth: and 
perhaps with equal propriety might have been stiled the torrid, the temperate, and the frigid zone. 
The first region surrounds the foot of the mountain, and constitutes the most fertile country in the 
world on all sides of it, to the extent of about fourteen or fifteen miles, where the woody region 
begins. It is composed almost entirely of lava, which, after a number of ages, is at last converted 
into the most fertile of all soils. 
Every eruption generally forms a new mountain. As the great Crater of JBtna itself is raised to 
such an enormous height above the lower regions of the mountain, it is not possible that the internal 
fire raging for vent, even round the base, and no doubt vastly below it, should be carried to the height 
of twelve or thirteen thousand feet to the summit of iEtna. It has therefore generally happened, that 
after shaking the mountain and its neighbourhood for some time, it at last bursts open its side. At 
first it only sends forth a thick smoke and showers of ashes, that lay waste the adjacent country: these 
are soon followed by red-hot stones, and rocks of a great size, thrown to an immense height in the air. 
The fall of these stones, together with the quantity of ashes discharged at the same time, at last form 
one of these spherical and conical mountains. Sometimes this process is finished in the course of a 
few days: sometimes it lasts for months, which was the case in the eruption of 1669. In that case 
the mountains formed are of a great size; some of them are not less than seven or eight miles round, 
and upwards of one thousand feet in perpendicular height: others are not more than two or three 
miles round, and three or four hundred feet high. 
After the new mountain is formed, the lava generally bursts out from its lower side; and bearing 
away every thing before it, is for the most part terminated by the sea. This is the common progress 
of an eruption; however, it sometimes happens, though rarely, that the lava bursts at once from the 
side of the mountain, without all these attending circumstances; and this is commonly the case with 
the eruption of Vesuvius, where the elevation being much smaller, the melted matter is generally 
carried up into the crater of the mountain, which then discharges showers of stones and ashes from 
the mouth of the volcano, without forming any new mountain, but only adding considerably to the 
height of the old one; till at last the lava, rising near the summit, bursts the side of the crater, and 
the eruption is declared, ^his has been the case with two eruptions lately; but _ZEtna is upon a much 
larger scale, and one crater is not enough to give vent to such oceans of liquid fire. 
A Sicilian gentleman saw in an eruption of that mountain, large rocks of fire discharged to the 
height of some thousand feet, with a noise more terrible than that of thunder. He measured from 
the time of then greatest elevation, till they reached the ground, and found they took twentv-one 
seconds to descend, which (the spaces being as the squares of the times) amounted to upwards of 
seven thousand feet! 
After contemplating these objects for some time, says another traveller, we set off, and soon after 
arrived at the foot of the great crater of .Etna. This is of an exact conical figure, and rises equally 
