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crater of Vesuvius while he was standing on the edge of it* and which burst in the air at some distance 
from the mountain, soon after which he heard a noise like the fall of a number of stones, or of a heavy 
shower of hail. During the eruption of the 15 th at night, few of the inhabitants of Naples, from the 
dread of earthquakes, ventured to go to their beds. The common people were either employed in 
devout processions in the streets, or were sleeping on the quays and open places; the nobility and gentry, 
having caused their horses to be taken from their carriages, slept in them in the squares and open places, 
or on the high roads just out of the town. For several days, while the volcanic storms of thunder and 
lightning lasted, the inhabitants at the foot of the volcano, both on the sea side and the Somma side, 
were often sensible of a tremor in the earth, as well as of the concussions in the air, but at Naples only 
the earthquakes of the 12th and 15 th of June were distinctly and universally felt: this fair city could 
not certainly have resisted, had not those earthquakes been fortunately of a short duration. Through¬ 
out this eruption, which continued in force about ten days, the fever of the mountain, as has been re¬ 
marked in former eruptions, showed itself to be in some measure periodical, and generally was most 
violent at the break of day, at noon, and at midnight. 
About four o’clock in the morning of the l6th, the crater of Vesuvius began to show signs of being 
open, by some black smoke issuing out of it; and at day-break another smoke, tinged with red, issuing 
from an opening near the crater, but on the other side of the mountain, and facing the town of Ottaiano, 
shewed that a new mouth had opened there, from which a considerable stream of lava issued, and ran 
with great velocity through a wood, which it burnt; and having run about three miles in a few hours, 
it stopped before it had arrived at the vineyards and cultivated lands. The crater, and all the conical 
part of Vesuvius, was soon involved in clouds and darkness, and so it remained for several days; but 
above these clouds, although of a great height, fresh columns of smoke were seen from the crater, 
rising furiously still higher, until the whole mass remained in the usual form of a pine-tree; and in that 
gigantic mass of heavy clouds the ferilli, or volcanic lightning, was frequently visible, even in the day 
time. About five o’clock in the morning of the l6th, the lava which had first broken out from the 
several new mouths on the south side of the mountain, had reached the sea, and was running into it, 
having overwhelmed, burnt, and destroyed the greatest part of Torre del Greco, the principal stream of 
lava having taken its course through the very centre of the town. They observed from Naples, that 
when the lava was in the vineyards in its way to the town, there issued often, and in different parts of 
it, a bright pale flame, and very different from the deep red of the lava; this was occasioned by the burn¬ 
ing of the trees that supported the vines. Soon after the beginning of this eruption, ashes fell thick at 
the foot of the mountain, all the way from Portici to the Torre del Greco; and what is remarkable, 
although there were not at that time any clouds in the air, except those of smoke from the mountain, 
the ashes were wet, and accompanied with large drops of water, which were to the taste very salt; 
the road, which is paved, was as wet as if there had been a heavy shower of rain. Those ashes were 
black and coarse, like the sand of the sea-shore; whereas those that fell there, and at Naples some days 
after, were of a light grey colour, and as fine as Spanish snuff, or powdered bark. They contained 
many saline particles; those ashes that lay on the ground, exposed to the burning sun, had a coat of the 
whitest powder on their surface, which to the taste was extremely salt and pungent. In the printed 
account of the eruption by Emanuel Scotti, doctor of physic and professor of philosophy in the univer¬ 
sity of Naples, he supposes (which appears to be highly probable) that the water which accompanied 
the fall of the ashes at the beginning of the eruption, was produced by the mixture of the inflammable 
and dephlogisticated air. 
By the time that the lava had reached the sea, between five and six o’clock in the morning of the 
l6th, Vesuvius was so completely involved in darkness, that the violent operation of nature that was 
going on there could no longer be discerned, and so it remained for several days; but the dreadful noise, 
and the red tinge on the clouds over the top of the mountain, were evident signs of the activity of the 
fire underneath. The lava ran but slowly at Torre del Greco after it had reached the sea; and on the 
17th of June in the morning, its course was stopped, excepting that at times a little rivulet of liquid 
fire issued from under the smoaking scoriae into the sea, and caused a hissing noise, and a white vapour 
smoke; at other times, a quantity of large scoriae were pushed off the surface of the body of the lava 
into the sea, discovering that it was red hot under that surface; and even to the latter end of August, 
the center of the thickest part of the lava that covered the town retained its red heat. The breadth of 
the lava that ran into the sea, and formed a new promontory there, after having destroyed the greatest 
part of the town of Torre del Greco, having been exactly measured by the duke della Torre, is of Eng- 
2 I 
