Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1874-04-25


gentlemen to see who could reach
the base first.
A fat fellow-that is a stout,
portly, obese traveler-was strid-
ing down the incline as we were la
boriously climbing up, when he trip
ped and rolled down considerable
distance, like a hogShead, amid the
uproarious laughter of the carriers
who finally stopped his gyratory mo-
ton. How they ever got him to
the top of the mountain must remain
a mystery.
What appears at distance as a
cloud of smoke issuing from the era
ter of Vesuvius is simply the
vAFOR OF WATER
impregnated with the fumes of sui
phur. No smoke such as that pro
duced by the combustion of any car
bom-substances ever issues from the
The seeming Smoke"
is always steam or aqueous YapOr,
more or less dark as it happens to
be charged with ashes. When this
vapor condenses in the atmosphere,
it descends in the form of rain, and,
if much mixed with ashes, it falls in
a paste or muddy shower. During
great eruptions, when enormous
quantities of ashes are elected with
thick clouds of vapOr, they fall in
torrents of mud and water. This
is exactly what happened 1900
years ago, when Pompeii, Hercula-
neum, Stable, andseveral other towns
were destroyed by that awful erup-
ton of A. D. 70. The tremendous
heat in the bowels of the mountain,
coming in contact with a great
body of water from the Mediterra-
mean Sea, which had percolated
through the fissures of the stratifed
limestone and other rocks, with the
fires, instantly acting on it
like furnace heat, converted it into
steam. The sudden conversion of
millions of cubic feet of water into
high steam by the subterraneBn fires
produced the phenomena of explo-
ding steam on a vast scale. The
sudden and resistless expansion of
water into 100 times its original
bulk tore great rents and assures in.
the sides of the mountain, through
which, at the lowest points of exit,
flowed heavy streams of fluid lava;
and from the crater itself, being the
highest part of the mountain, and
acting like a chimney, issued forth
vast clouds of steam mixed with
sulphur vapor and enormous guam
titles of ashes and showers of
stones, which were flung out by the
explosions of the water into steam.
The fire that is seen above the crater
during an eruption
IS NOT FLAME,
but is the reflection of the molten
lava within the crater upon the
clouds of aqueous vapor and ashes
suspended over it. The lightning
which is seen darting from the edges
of the black cloud is produced by
the electricity which is produced by
the rapid condensation of vapor into
water, and of water into steam, un-
der the effect of the heat radiated
from The crater.
Previous to the great eruption of
A. d. 70, which destroyed Pompeii,
there had been passive period ex-
tending back beyond recorded histo
ry. The Greeks had settled around
the Bay of Naples l,OOOyears before
that event, and their early writers
have never heard of an eruption of
Vesuvius. But the ancient geo.
recognized the volcanic
of the mountain from its
of form to Etna. The
present cone was not created previ-
Gus to the great eruption of a. D.
70. The mountain was only 5000
feet high, and had broad, craggy
top miles in diameter, among the
hollows of which grew the wild vine
and pine trees. There was no crater
in those days. During the early civil
wars of Rome, contending factions
built fortresses over where the era
ter subsequently, appeared. Sudden
ly, one day, Feb. 5, in the year A.
d. SO, there was a great earthquake
around the base of Vesuvius, which
convulsed the whole neighborhood,
and tumbled down many of the
buildings in Pompeii and in other
towns in the vicinity. The premon-
tory symptom of returning activi-
ty after so many centuries of dor
nance, was followed by a number
of other shocks during the next SIX
teen years, until the day of
THE MEMORABLE ERUPTION
so graphically described by the
younger Pliny in his letter to Tacitus.
The place where he was during the
was at Misenum, small
port of the bay a few miles from
and about IA or l5 from the
in a northwest direction,
while Pompeii lay on the plain near
the sea-shore, 5, or 6 miles to the
southwest of Vesuvius, in which di-
rectlon the wind seems to have blown
as the greatest fall of ashes, rain,
and mud was on that side of the
But the ashes fell in
immense quantities all around the
bay and plain, fora distance of so
miles from the crater. Pliny says
that after several shocks of earth
quake in quick succession, which did
not much alarm people, because
there had lately been experienced
many shocks. "a black and dread
full cloud, bursting forth with igne-
Gus, serpentine vapor, darted out
long train of fire, resembling flashes
of lightning, but much larger and
more terrific. The black cloud rose
high in the heavens, and quickly
spread out in every direction, rolling
like torrent in vast frightful folds,
until it overspread the whole bay
and surrounding country, shutting
out the light of day. We were i'm
mersed in thick darkness, and a
heavy shower of mud and ashes rain
ed upon us which we were obliged
to shake off, otherwise we should
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