400 
APPENDIX. C. 
that all the rocks which compose it will crumble 
into ashes, if the volcano that has produced such 
an effect should again for a while resume its opera¬ 
tions. Contrary to their expectations, they con¬ 
tinued to ascend without meeting with any ob¬ 
stacle, passing over a continued series of sloping 
terraces, of which they reckoned seven before 
they reached the summit. The sides of the hill 
they found from top to bottom deeply scarred with 
ravines formed originally by the torrents of lava, 
but now serving as beds for the winter cataracts. 
Among other curious minerals that they met with 
on their way, they gathered some that they con¬ 
sidered as decisive of the fact of Hecla having 
occasionally thrown out water # as w r ell as fire; 
and they are from this led to notice an extra- 
* The discharge of water-from volcanoes, as well as fire, 
is by no means unusual. Sir William Hamilton, who most 
ingeniously endeavors to account for some of the most strik¬ 
ing appearances of the globe from this circumstance, con¬ 
siders the water as merely rain that has been deposited in the 
caverns, contrary, as he says, to the generally received 
opinion that it arises from a connection between the moun¬ 
tains and the sea. He mentions (Campi Phlegrai, p. 27J on 
this subject, that “ it is well attested, that in the great erup- 
« tion of Vesuvius, A.D. 1631, several towns, among which 
“ were Portici and Torre del Greco, were destroyed by a tor- 
“ rent of boiling water having burst out of the mountain 
« with tfie lava, by which thousands of lives were lost.” 
