Year: 1868

suvius.


The following interesting letter from
Mr.. @. Grove, dated Naples, April 4th,
appears in the London Times


For some days past Vesnvius has been
diminishing in activity, and during the
earlier days Of this week hardly a sign
Of fire has been visible from Naples
Yesterday afternoon, however, the crater
made very satisfactory demonstration,
which IL was my good fortune to see quite
close. We had heard several explosions
as we came up the mountain, and bad seen
an occasional shower Of sparks thrown
up above the little crater, and these grad.
ually increased until we had taken our
stand.


Then for more than two hours the hill
above us continued to shoot forth an
almost constant succession of explosions
of brilliant burning stones. l hardly
like TO use comparison, but don't think
| can give better idea Of it than by
saying each explosion was like vast
girandole OF rockets, only that there was
ewing to the different sizes Of the stones
shot out, and that there was more intense
heat at the first outburst than in the case
of rockets. Flame there certainly was
none this we observed carefully though
the trails of the shooting stones and the
illuminated vapor might almost excuse
the word.


The noise Of the discharges was not a
bang; it was a pervading sound, almost
exactly resembling the waves on a beach
and wind blowing through shrouds. 1t
varied in intensity, but was nearly con.
tinuous, and of the character mentioned.
The mountain trembled perceptibly
enough during the whole of our stay,
though not nearly so strong as it did
during my Wednesday visit when there
was scarcely any actual explosion. tits
impossible for me to calculate exactly,
but judged that there were from 1000
to 1900 stones in each great discharge,
and there were often as many as eight or
ten discharges in minute. The majority
of the stones were small--the largest,
say as large as two bricks end to end.
The large ones mostly fell back into the
crater, but the small ones, being thrown
higher and more acted on by the wind,
fell in immense numbers on the eeward
slope of the small crater on the same
side of the great cone beyond. To my
mind, this was spectacle hardly less
striking than the discharges themselves;
at any rate, it was quite new to me.


| have often heard it said that the cone
becomes "red-hot under such dis
charges, but this is not an accurate de-
scription of what | saw. Red is not
the word, but "golden," and the cone
was not covered even by these copious
showers. The sight was far more beau
tiful than if it had been so. The crowd
of golden spots on the dead black sur
face, the small ones generally resting
where they fell, while the large ones
rolled through them down the slopes, and
the constant change as shower after
shower descended, made q variegated
and beautiful spectacle such as was of
itself alone worth the ascent. 1t formed
a wonderful pedestal to the explosions
which surmounted it, and which were
naturally the great attraction.


/ could not calculate the hight to which
some of the small stones were thrown, but
it was very great. There was generally
one which went far higher than all the
rest, and pierced upwards toward the
moon, who looked calmly down, mocking
such vain attempts to reach her. The
larger pieces were, with rare exceptions,
not thrown so high indeed, many Of
them only just appeared over the rim of
the cone, above which they came float
ing leisurely up, to show their brilliant
forms and intense. white light for a
second, and then subsided again into the
abyss.


The inference was inevitable that there
were many still larger blocks which
were not thrown high enough for US TO
see at all. At nine clock we turned to
come down, and after that nothing oc
cured but the ordinary incidents of the
very disagreesble descent of the volcano
over and through heaps of coke of the
most jagged and wounding forms. The
discharges diminished in frequency and
fury, and when the carriage turned into
the Chisja and the mountain came into
view, very rare burst from the summit
alone remained to tell what we had been
seeing.