The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1884-10-03
On the Summit Of vesuvius.

We passed over the craters Of these
fresh lava streams. There are five
mouths, yellow with sulphur, and the
billowy election stands on their lips
just as they were when they spit them
forth so far. It seems that such lips
must needs be treacherous, but ven
ture on them and wonder how for it is
to the source from which they spit fire
few weeks before.
The crater at the summit is two or
three hundred feet higher, and is the
point from which nearly always smoke
issues and much of the time stones
and lava are thrown up. Theconigur-
alton OF the mountain as seen from The
Bay OF Naples, where L examined it,
shows that the present crater is one side
the western side--of very much
larger crater of spent volcano. On
the side toward Naples, the rim of the
original volcano, which was active long
before historical times, was burned
through or melted down, and piled up
on the mountain slope below. The
whole history of the procedure is plainly
written out in toe landscape, and the
wonder is that nothing is said about it,
so far as I know.
On the day we went up Vesuyius
was uncommonly active. We ap-
preached it from the leeward side, and
long before we reached the top we heard
the laundering, kissing roar of the erup-
tions. saw the ashes falling about us.
the stones shooting up hundreds Of feet
in the air and falling in showers, and
smelt the heavy fumes of sulphurous
gas. Some of the company when we
came to the region where smoke was
issuing from the corners of the rocks
below us, where we could look down
through the funnel-shaped chimneys
whence the scorching gas was coming
and coloring the rocks around q bright
yellow, decided they would 60 no fur
ther. But I had come to see the volca-
no, and pushed on. The guide followed
me some hundreds OF feet, and then he
stopped and called on me to come back.
I kept on, and by going round to the
windward side 1 was able to reach the
rim of the CT ater. The stones were shot
up into the air mostly vertically, but
some of them fell around me. I was
careful after each eruption, which
secured at intervals of two OF
three minutes, to watch the stones
prepared 10 dodge them if any
should come down in my direction.
Even from this position could moi
look down upon the boiling surface, bu
l could hear the terrible splashing ant
surging and roaring, and could see th,
red-hot masses Of lava, five or six fee
long and foot wide or SO, thrown NJ
| like bloody masses of flesh, torn ant
dripping. These after going up thirt,
or forty feet in the air, turn black, sep
arate into fragments, and come down a
stones and ashes. It was the wildes
and most horrid sight speak o
the appearance, not the fact eve
saw-Pluto's butcher shop, where he
amid all the wild music and outcries o
the lower world, was butchering his vic
tins and amusing himself by throwing
the fragments dripping in their gore int
the air. This was the first suggestion
the suggestion of sense. This soon CAV
place to current of reflection, wonde
1 and gratitude. stood there amaze,
before the wonderous Power that ha
sobered and tanned the wild forces Q
our planet. I remembered that ono
i gigantic steeds of fire ragged over th
whole earth snorting and fighting
paving at the SUI and kicking thei
heels in the face of the moon and no,
He had subdued and trained and stale
them, and now we must come here t
see only the frisking of the tail.-Let
ters from Naples.