Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1883-10-12
CLIMBING YESUYIUS,
Interesting Account OF an Ascent
7 OF Iraly's Great Volcano-A Peep
Into the Bowels OF the Earth.

i Interesting Account OF ap Ascent
OF Iraly's Great Volcano-A Peep
Into the Bowels OF the Earth.
Zone day of our stay in Naples was
sent apart for a visit to Vesuvius,, writes
DR.. Plant. of Troy, N. Y, who is ii,
Europe to his father. ''To avoid as
much as possible the excessive heat OF
midday, we had given orders to be
; called at 5 q. M. Our breakfast was as
usual. A continental breakfast is "with-
out variableness or shadow of turning =
consisting of bread, coffee, and waters
OF fresh butter. We have, though
come to think of it,-been two or three
times served with strained honey. At
o:l5 we started-a company of eighteen
or twenty, In q quarter as many car
riages. For three or four miles, at
least, our route lay along the crescent
shore of the citv, or, I believe, in any
other European city. Men, women, and
children utterly unkempt and uncared
for; bare footed and dirty-legged; faces
unWashed and hair uncombed, all about
the streets, walking, sitting, reclining;
many OF them munching tn eir breakfast
of black bread and figs; sidewalks
Internationally filthy, and clouds of
dust, rising from the unsprinkled streets
that is the picture that any one will
recognize who has ever been in Naples.
Patient, forbidding, plod6;ng, little don
keys, hardly larger than Newfound-
land dog, were going cityward, all coy
cred up with their immense panniers or
baskets of vegetables and fruits. They
are Seldom driven ny reins as are our
horses, but the master or perhaps mis-
t-ess, walks behind him and holds on
by the tail. A donkey's tail is an ins,i-
tuition in itself. It is the rudder that
guides him. A little twist this way or
that way tarns the whole body. An a6-
monitory pinch makes him go faster. A
spiteful wrench assures him that his
master is mad and he brays, while a
gentle squeeze, q tender pressure, tells
him that all is well, and he joys con
tentedly along, willing to bear any bur-
den and endure hardships so that he
may stand approved at headquar ers,
which, curlously, are at the tail end.
"Our progress was slow. The Naples
horses are poor, dispirited, and abused.
Their protruding ribs show q lack of
oats, and tielr scanned skins an over
use of the lash. The Italians appear to
be very fond Of using the whip on their
beasts.
1'Turning at last from the long, dole
full street, we began to climb the noun
tain. The scent is made by wagon and
railroad. Both are good and the cost of
construction must have been enormous.
The whole business is in charge of the
Vesuvius company, which is not the Ne
apolitan, or eyeu italian, but Belgian.
The wagon road is zigzag; more crooked
than the trail Of an earthworm in tie
sand otter shower. Our progress Was
something like a crabs. more lateral
than forward. Still We do go forward
and upward, though at a snais' pace.
The base of the great mountain, which is
thirty miles in circumference, is q gar
granates, and olives abound. Thousands
little white cottages, nearer than were
Pompcii and Herculaueum, hug
ging the mountain, so to speak,
torgetiul. apparently, of it's pow
er 10 destroy. The great eruption of
8 few years ago did destroy one little
village, bit hardly had the ground
cooled and the smoke cleared away
when these honle-loying people began
to build or the same site, and it is now
as aourlshing as before.
Though the base of the mountain is
lovely and rich with blossom and fruit,
we soon come to scene as deso!ate as
can be imagined. Great fields of dark
brown almost black lava, cover most of
the mountain side. Its surface is not
uniform, but extremely irregular and
nodnlar, and it is easy to see how it has
become SO. The liquid Lava is thick
substance, something like pitch, and
usually moves slowly Any obstruction
as an uneven surface retards the stream;
the lower edge cools and becomes
thicker, increasing the obstruction, and
there results an accumulation.-a bunch
ing up Of the lava at this point. There
are multitudes Of these l:alnmocas, with
wavy outlines on the lower Sid. where
the liquid has solidifeds. The appear
ance is much as we NAV Imagine would
be that Of solid black pillows. AS the
lava coo]s another phenomena occurs:
that is, assuring. The more recent beds
are full Of unsightly gashes, running
cross-wlse, wide enough and deep
enough often to take one in all over. But
lava Is not a very stable product; it tends
dlslntregate by exposure, and in the OIL
der beds it has crumbled down into
something ike a uniform moss. / have
somewhere read that it makes an excel
lent fertilizer, but over all these acres
of lava-covered soil there is no sign Of
vegetation. The scene is the very black
ness OF desolation.'
1.-THE cone is d stinct from the noun
tain in the sense that dome is distinct
from the building which it surrounds.
1t is very steep, and something like q
third of a mile in height. Near the base
TO the cone stands the observator y on q
spur of the mountain. In the great erup-
ton some years ago the river OF molten
lava divided just above this point, q
branch running down on either side oil
the observatory. Here, Palmierl, the
hero Of Vesuvious, watched and signaled
the process to those below. It must have
been hot place, that observatory, with
it on either side.
''Though the mountain-top is prob
ably not more than six miles from our
hotel in Naples, our actual travel had
been far more than that, and it WAS II
rant and railroad station at the foot Of
the cone. Deciding to lunch before CO.
ing further, our tables were spread under
a Verantiah overlooking scene of great
extent and matchless beauty. Below us
was the mountain, vine-clad at its base,
but with acres on acres of dark dishgur-
ing masses Of lava imm ed lately before
us; yonder the city, with its outlying
villages; On the other side of the Bay
Sorrento, sitting between hills couered
to their SUBMITS with olive and orange
trees; in the Rocky island of Cabril.
with it's wonderful blue Grotto; and far
Their out, but within plain sight, the
classic island of Ischia, lately the scene
of disaster SO appalling as to call for