The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1867-12-17

greatly modified the interior of the
cone. At any moment, however, the
demon who groans beneath the noun
tain in the burning bed may trans
form the whole exterior Of the noun
tain.
Such outbreaks as this which we
are now permitted to observe may be
the preliminaries of an immediate
eruption on the grandest possible
scale, or may die away, after few
weeks, not to be renewed in many
months or years. Nobody can tell
whether the scenes of 1917, 1850 and
1865 are to be repeated, or whether
this is merely a theatrical display,
ending harmlessly, and serving only
to detain visitors at Naples and at
tract crowds of tourists. Thus far it
presents the combined phenomena Of
red hot stones, cinders and lava.
These phenomenas are not always CO.
incident Although there were I'M
d0ubtediy streams oflava from the vol
cane in A. D. 70, yet there is no ac-
curate record Of the discharge of IL
quid lava until 1896. Some eruptions
have been accompanied by earth
qIakes, others have not: but now the
earth rumbles beneath the feet of
those who visit the mountain; deto-
nations are heard, as from subterra-
mean cannon, and the ground trem-
bles as though it were about to yawn
in hideOus chasms and swallow up all
living things. Only when you pass
down from the loose ashes of the
cone, across the black, desolate belts
Of jagged scori8 and reach the rich,
smiling vineyards at the foot Of this
fiery and uneasy monster, does the
sense of security return, and even
then this sense of security is again
aissipated when you glance back at
the smoking craters, and recollect
how far the winds have often carried
the fatal showers of mud and ashes
that Vesuvius vomits forth.
At night, contrasting grandly with
the surrounding gloom, cone of fire
flashes constantly from the crater.
The sight is so beautiful, so bewilder-
sible to sleep last evening. Crowds
of people were in the street, or at the
windows, or driving upon the Chiaja,
watching and commenting upon the
display.
As this letter is written early in
the morning to catch the quickest
mail, the spectacle from my window
is superb. Near Vesuvius the sun is
rising in glory Oh crimson and gold,
tinging the pale blue of the morning
sky, glowing in the few feecy clouds
that skirt the horizon. and dancing in
a thousand prismatic hues upon the
calm waves of the beautiful bay. Up
from the volcano the thick, black
smoke rolls in heavy volumes, as
though destined to darken the day.
No flames are to be seen. for the suns
rays have quite eclipsed them now,
just as the darkness of night conceals
the smoke and leaves only the cone
of fire visible in its strange, weired
beauty.
If the reports which have reached
us here of tremendous tornadoes at
the West Indies be true. and if the
meteoric showers announced by as
tronomers for last evening were OBJ
served in other parts of the globe,
may not philosophic fact go hand in
hand with speculative fancy and con-
meet these simultaneous natural phe-
nomena in some prehensive the
DRY, showing how the operations of
nature in one hemisphere are accom-
panied, supplemented and completed
by occurrences in another hemi-
sphere, just as remote portions of
great and intricate machine are
moved by and depend upon each 9th
er, so that the same convulsion which
causes the storm also occasions the
eruption?