While we were upon the mountain, a party of Austrians had arrived with the intention of reposing on the couches, which the hermit is provided with for that purpose, and setting out for the crater at day-break. This is perhaps a preferable plan to the one which we had adopted.
After remaining an hour at the hermitage we re-commenced our journey to Resina by torch-light, the moon having sunk below the horizon. About three o’clock we re-entered our carriage, and at four in the morning arrived at Naples.
Before quitting the subject of Mount Vesuvius, it may be interesting to give the following extract of a description of this now quiescent volcano, when under a state of turbulence, with some observations on the causes of this interesting natural phenomenon.
“Exclusive of those periods when there are actual eruptions, the appearance and quantity of what issues from the mountain are various; sometimes, for a long space of time together, it seems in a state of almost perfect tranquillity; nothing but a small quantity of smoke ascending from the volcano, as if that vast magazine of fuel, which has kept alive for so many ages, was at last exhausted, and nothing remained but the dying embers; then, perhaps, when least expected, the cloud of smoke thickens, and is intermixed with flame; at other times, quantities of pumice-stones and ashes, are thrown up with a kind of hissing noise. For near a week the mountain has been more turbulent than it has been since the small eruption, or rather boiling over of lava, which took place about two months ago; and while we remained at the top, the explosions were of sufficient importance to satisfy our curiosity to the utmost. They appeared much more considerable there, than we had imagined while at a greater distance; each of them was preceded by a noise like thunder within the mountain, a column of thick black smoke then issued out with great rapidity, followed by a blaze of flame; and immediately after, a shower of cinders, and ashes, or red hot stones, were thrown into the sky. This was succeeded by a calm of a few minutes, during which, nothing issued but a moderate quantity of smoke and flame, which gradually increased, and terminated in thunder and explosion as before. These accesses and intervals continued with varied force while we remained.
“When we first arrived, our guides placed us at a reasonable distance from the mouth of the volcano, and on the side from which the wind came, so that we were no way incommoded by the smoke. In this situation the wind also bore to the opposite side, the cinders, ashes, and other fiery substances, which were thrown up; and we ran no danger of being hurt, except when the explosion was very violent, and when red hot stones, and such heavy substances, were thrown like sky-rockets, with a great, and prodigious force, into the air; and even these make such a flaming appearance, and take so much time in descending that they are easily avoided.”—Moore’s View, &c.
“There is no volcanic mountain in Europe, whose desolating paroxysms have been so fatally experienced, and so accurately transmitted to us, as those of Vesuvius. This mountain is well known to constitute one of the natural wonders of the kingdom of Naples. Like Parnassus, it has been said to consist of two summits, one of which, situated in a westward direction, is called by the natives Somma; and the other, running in a southern line, Proper Vesuvius, or Vesuvio; and it is this last alone, which emits fire and smoke. The two hills, or summits, are separated by a valley about a mile in length, and peculiarly fertile in its production.
“The eruptions of this mountain have been numerous in almost every age of the Christian era, and on many occasions prodigiously destructive. The eruptions of volcanoes are usually attended by some shocks like those of earthquakes, although commonly less violent. Open volcanoes continually throw out, in more or less abundance, smoke, ashes, and pumice-stones, or light cinders, but their most formidable effects are produced by a torrent of ignited lava, which, like a vast deluge of liquid, or semi-liquid fire, lays waste the country over which it runs, and buries all the work of human art. In March, 1767, Vesuvius began to throw out a considerable quantity of ashes and stones, which raised its summit in the course of the year no less than two hundred feet, forming first a little mountain of pumice-stones within the crater, which, by degrees, became visible above the margin. The smoke, which was continually emitted, was rendered luminous at night, by the light derived from the fire burning below it. In August, some lava had broken through this mountain, and in September, it had filled the space left between it and the former crater. On the 13th and 14th of October, there were heavy rains, which, perhaps, supplied the water concerned in the eruption that shortly followed.
“On the morning of the 19th, clouds of smoke were forced, in continual succession, out of the mouth of the volcano, forming a mass like a large pine-tree, which was lengthened into an arch, and extended to the island of Caprea, twenty-eight miles off; it was accompanied by much lightning, and by an appearance of meteors like shooting stars. A mouth then opened below the crater, and discharged a stream of lava, which Sir William Hamilton ventured to approach within a short distance, imagining that the violence of the confined materials, must have been exhausted; but on a sudden, the mountain opened with a great noise at a much lower point, about a quarter of a mile from the place where he stood, and threw out a torrent of lava, which advanced straight towards him, while he was involved in a shower of small pumice-stones and ashes, and in a cloud of smoke. The force of the explosions were so great, that doors and windows were thrown open by them at the distance of several miles. The stream of lava was in some places two miles broad, and sixty or seventy feet deep; it extended about six miles from the summit of the mountain, and remained hot for several weeks.
“In 1794, a still more violent eruption occurred; it was expected by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, the crater being nearly filled, and the water in the wells having subsided; showers of immense stones were projected to a great height, and ashes were thrown out so copiously, that they were very thick at Taranto, two hundred and fifty miles off; some of them were also wet with salt water. A heavy noxious vapour, supposed to be carbonic acid, issued in many places from the earth, and destroyed the vineyards in which it was suffered to remain stagnant. A part of the town of Torre de Greco was overwhelmed by a stream of lava, which ran through it into the sea.
“The shocks of earthquakes and the eruptions of volcanoes, are, in all probability, modifications of the effects of one common cause: the same countries are subject to both of them; and where the agitation produced by an earthquake extends farther than there is any reason to suspect a subterraneous commotion, it is probably propagated through the earth nearly in the same manner as a noise conveyed through the air.