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stones to another and a larger plain, | islands, and to Constantinople; and which was covered with ashes and had the eruption was followed by discharges three small pools of warm brackish of vapour and hot water, which fell in water. During this interval of rest, in the form of torrents of rain upon the 1538, Monte Nuovo, near Pozzuoli, was slopes of the mountain, killed great thrown up. numbers of persons at Portici and Torre On the 16th December, 1631, one del Greco, and inundated the country of the greatest modern eruptions as far as Nola and the Apennines. The occurred. Braccini, who describes it, eruption did not entirely cease till says that about midsummer the plain February 1632, when it was ascertained of the Sarno was convulsed by earth- by measurement that the cone had quakes, which occurred so repeatedly lost so much of its height that it was during the six following months that 1530 ft. lower than Monte Somma. many persons from Naples ascended Other eruptions occurred in 1638; the mountain to ascertain whether any-in 1660, when the crater was change had taken place in the interior. cleared out, that three small holes They found the crater filled with vol- could be seen in action at the botcanic matter, and no longer concave but perfectly level with its margin, while noises were heard beneath the surface. On the 16th of December, at early dawn, the cone poured out from its S.W. flank a column of vapour so loaded with ashes as to have the appearance of black smoke, and which assumed the usual form of a pine-tree, followed by discharges of stones and flashes of volcanic fire. The column of vapour was carried over nearly 100 m. of country. and was charged with so much electricity, that several men and animals were killed by the ferilli or flashes of lightning which continually darted from it. These were succeeded by a great earthquake, during which the sea retired to a distance of m. from the shore, and then returned with such violence that it covered the land 30 paces beyond its former limit. At the same moment the summit of the cone poured out seven streams of lava, one of which took the direction of Torre dell' Annunziata, where it formed the masses of lava now visible on the W. of the town; another destroyed twothirds of Torre del Greco; a third Resina, which had arisen on the site of Herculaneum; another the village of Granatello and part of Portici, where it flowed into the sea and formed the current on which the Royal Palace and La Favorita were subsequently built. 18,000 persons are said to have perished in this catastrophe. The ashes were carried by the wind to the shores of the Adriatic, to the Greek

tom of the hollow, corresponding in their position with the three pools observed by Braccini 30 years before ;in 1676;-in 1682, when the aspect of the mountain was changed, and a small cone thrown up from the centre cavity, having on its summit a little crater, which discharged ashes;-in 1689, the large crater was nearly filled up; the central cone had increased so much that the two cones, from a distance, presented the appearance of one large and unbroken mountain; the summit, however, was lower, by about 1200 feet, than Somma;-in 1694 two streams of lava flowed in the directions respectively of S. Giorgio a Cremano and Torre del Greco, and we are told that the Viceroy of the day ordered a deep trench to be cut a mile from the sea in order to intercept the lava, which flowed into the trench and consolidated in it;-in 1696;-in 1698. During the 18th century the volcano was in constant activity; in 1701 two streams of lava flowed from the cone, one to Ottajano, and the other to Viulo;-from 1704 to 1708 there were frequent eruptions, the worst being in 1707, when ashes, stones, and lava were cast forth in large quantities, Naples being on August 4 covered with a dense shower of ashes;-from 1712 to 1737 there were constant eruptions, that of 1717 being described by Bishop Berkeley, who calculated that the height to which the stones were projected was 1000 ft. above the orifice from which they issued ;

the streets, a few days afterwards, was 4 feet; the ashes of this eruption fell as far as Benevento, Foggia, and Manfredonia, a distance of 100 m.;-in 1784 and 1785 lava flowed for 14 months continuously, and within the crater, which in 1783 was an inaccessible gulf 250 feet deep, a new cone was formed which before the close of 1785 had risen above the rim of the old crater;-in 1786, '88, '89, and '90 there were the usual ordinary eruptions.

The most important eruption since those of 79 and 1631 commenced in February 1793, and continued with scarcely any intermission till Midsummer, 1794. It attained its height on the 15th June, 1794, wherefore it is known as the eruption of '94. On the 12th June, 1794, an earthquake shook the country for miles round. Between Vesuvius and the coast the surface of the ground was seen to undulate like a sea, from E. to W., and a large fissure, 3000 ft. long, opened down the W. flank of the mountain. In the night of the 15th a small crater below the base of the great cone, at a point now called Pedamentina, and not

and that of 1728 producing a new cone | fell upon the town weighed upwards within the crater of the old one; of 100 lbs., and the depth of ashes in in 1737, when a lava stream 1 m. wide burst from the flanks of the mountain and divided into four lesser streams, two of which stopped near Torre del Greco, the crater at the same time poured out lava in the direction of the Hermitage, Somma, and Ottajano; the damage done by the ashes of this eruption was very great, houses being crushed, and trees and vines broken by the weight of them;-in 1751, after a heavy flow of lava into the Atrio del Cavallo, and thence into the plain, the central cone sank down, leaving an immense depression;-in 1754 and 1758, lava, ashes, and small stones were thrown out in great quantities;— in 1760, several small craters opened about midway between the centre cone and the sea, on the declivities now called Le Piane; three of these craters still exist under the name of Bocche or Voccole, but they have never since been in activity, and are now overgrown with vines and shrubs ;-in 1766 and 1767 lava-streams continued to flow, and new cones formed inside the crater; one stream ran into the Atrio del Cavallo; and when it ceased on the fifth day it was more than 6 m. long, 2 m. broad at its ex-much more than 1600 feet above the treme point, and from 60 to 70 ft. deep; level of the sea, discharged a stream in October, 1768, it had not cooled, of lava and immense volumes of black and a stick inserted in its crevices took smoke. A second mouth opened lower fire immediately; on this occasion ashes down, followed by others in quick sucare said to have fallen on the decks of cession, in a straight line towards the ships 60 m. distant;-in 1770, 1771, coast between Resina and Torre del 1773, and 1776 lava streams continued Greco. The explosions from these to pour out;-in 1779 an extraordi- mouths, some of which are still nary phenomenon accompanied the visible above Resina, resembled the usual features of an eruption; it is de- reports of heavy artillery, and were acscribed by Sir W. Hamilton as a foun-companied by a hollow subterranean tain of liquid transparent fire three murmur. times higher than Vesuvius itself, and emitting so vivid a light that the whole country was illumined for 10 m. round; the fall of the column was partly perpendicular, covering part of Monte Somma, the cone of Vesuvius, and the Atrio del Cavallo; and partly on the country round Ottaiano, where it destroyed woods and vineyards, and broke in the roof and windows of nearly every house; some of the stones which

Each mouth was distinctly seen from Naples to pour out a separate stream of lava. These streams united as they approached the plain and rolled on steadily towards the sea. The smoke collected above them into an enormous mass of clouds, which was carried by the wind towards Naples, discharging in its course incessant flashes of lightning. The lava at first threatened Resina; it then altered its direction towards Torre del Greco, over

aged, whom there was no time to remove from their houses. King Ferdinand tried to induce the inhabitants of Torre del Greco to rebuild their town on a safer spot, but they refused to abandon the old site.

In 1804 an eruption occurred of 30 days' duration; one lava stream reached the sea at Torre Scassata;-in 1805 the outflow of the lava was seen by Humboldt, Von Buch, and Gay-Lussac, who were on the mountain at the time :-from 1809 to 1813 the mountain was more or less constantly active ;-in 1817,'18. and '19 slight eruptions took place ;-in 1820, a new crater

followed by the appearance of 6 others in a direct line on the N.W. declivity; from each of them a stream of lava issued, which united and flowed into the Fosso della Vetrana, where it may still be seen.

the current of 1631, in a vast broad | stream. It passed through the centre of the town, enveloped the principal church, several churches, and the greater part of the houses, in a stream of lava varying from 12 to 40 feet in thickness, and advanced 380 feet into the sea in a mass 1204 feet wide and 15 feet high, presenting as it cooled a tendency to assume a columnar structure. This current, which may still be examined at Torre del Greco, was so unusually fluid that only hours elapsed from the time when it left the crater till it entered the sea, a distance of more than 4 m. As it passed through the town it illustrated, by its effect on metallic sub-opened in the S. flank of the mountain, stances, the intense heat of liquid lava, even when it has been exposed for 6 hours to the atmosphere; iron was swelled to four times its volume, and its internal structure entirely changed; silver was rapidly melted, and glass was converted into a stony milk-white mass. Breislak calculated that the bulk of the whole stream of lava was 46,098,766 cubic feet, and that that portion of it which entered the sea was 13 millions of cubic feet. The central cone also discharged a lava stream towards Ottajano. The ashes which accompanied this discharge fell at Taranto, and at places in Calabria 140 m. distant. When the smoke cleared away, it was seen that the S.E. side of the crater towards Bosco-tre-Case had fallen in, reducing the height of the lip on that side by 426 feet. The sea at Torre del Greco, on the 17th, when Sir W. Hamilton examined the lava, was in a boiling state at the distance of 100 yards from the new promontory, and no boat could remain near it on account of the melting of the pitch on her bottom. For nearly a month after this eruption the crater poured out enormous quantities of aqueous vapour, loaded with fine white ashes, which, descending in torrents of heavy rain, deluged the whole country with volcanic mud. Many of the ravines, like the Fosso Grande, were nearly filled with this mud, which hardened as it cooled, forming a white pumiceous tufa. The loss of life at Torre del Greco is believed to have been confined to the sick and

In the early part of 1822 a new crater opened near the 6 lateral ones of the last eruption; and on the 23rd and 24th February it poured out several streams into the Atrio del Cavallo. On the 23rd October the great cone suddenly fell in with a loud crash. The crater threw out two streams of lava, one of which overran the old lavas in the direction of Boscotre-Case, the other ran down the W. side towards La Favorita and Resina. Another stream issued from a new cone, and followed the same course; and a 4th issued from one of the old Voccole of 1794, and ran in the direction of Torre del Greco. The ashes and stones thrown out intercepted the high road from Resina to Torre dell' Annunziata. For 4 days they fell in one continued shower, and they did not entirely cease for 12 days. The atmosphere was so filled with fragmentary ashes and black augitic sand that the day was converted into night. This darkness prevailed as far even as Amalfi, where the ashes fell to a depth of several inches. The vapours from the crater, which rose to the height of nearly 10,000 ft. above the level of the sea, discharging flashes of lightning, were condensed into showers of heated water, which fell in torrents,