Beautiful Italian City on the Mediterranean Almost Engulfed in Ashes and Lava from the Terrible Volcano—Worst Eruption Since the Days of Pompeii and Herculaneum—Buildings Crushed and Thousands Rendered Homeless.
THE worst eruption of Mt. Vesuvius since the days when it buried under molten lava and ashes Pompeii and Herculaneum occurred on April 6, 1906. Almost without warning the huge crater opened its fiery mouth and poured from its throat and fiery interior and poured down the mountain sides oceans of burning lava, and warned 60,000 or 70,000 inhabitants of villages in the paths of the fiery floods that their only safety was in immediate flight. From the very start the scene was terrible and awe-inspiring. From the summit of the mountain a column of fire fully 1,000 feet leaped upward and lighted by its awful glare the sky and sea for miles around. Occasionally great masses of molten stone, some weighing as much as a ton were, accompanied by a thunderous noise, ejected from the crater and sent crashing down the mountain side, causing the natives, even as far as Naples, to quake with fear, abandon their homes and fall, praying, on their knees. One of the immense streams of lava which flowed from the crater’s mouth was more than 200 feet wide and, ever broadening, kept advancing at the rate of 21 feet a minute.
The first great modern eruption was that of 1631, eleven years after the pilgrim fathers landed on Plymouth rock. A sudden tidal wave of lava, utterly unexpected, engulfed 18,000 people, many of the coast towns being wholly and the remainder partially wiped out.
In 1707 the volcano sent forth a cloud of ashes so dense that at midday in the streets of Naples the blackness of the darkest night reigned supreme. The shrieks of terror stricken women pierced the air and the churches were crowded by the populace. The relics of San Januarius—his skull among them—were carried in procession through the streets.
Thirty years later a stream of lava one mile wide and containing 300,000,000 cubic feet burst from the mountain side. The next notable eruption was that of 1760, when new cones formed at the side and gave forth lava, smoke and ashes. Seven years later the king of Naples hastily retreated into the capital from the palace at Portici, threatened by a fresh outburst, and found the Neapolitans again in confusion.
An eruption lasting a year and a half commenced in 1793. Lava was emitted for fifteen hours and the sea boiled 100 yards from the coast.
That the Vesuvius eruptions are gaining in frequency is attested by the record of the nineteenth century, surpassing as it does that of the eighteenth. The first of note occurred in 1822, when the top of the great cone fell in and a lava stream a mile in width poured out. Twelve years later a river of lava nine miles long wiped out a town of 500 houses.
Lava flowed almost to the gates of Naples in 1855 and caused a deplorable loss of property to the cultivated region above.
Blocks of stone forty-five feet in circumference were hurled down the mountain by the spectacular outburst of 1872. Two lava floods rushed down the valley on two sides, ashes were shot thousands of feet in the air and the sea rose for miles. More than 20,000,000 cubic feet of lava was ejected in a single day.
Since 1879 Vesuvius has been variously active there being two eruptions of note in 1900 and two others in 1903. But that of 1905 was more violent than any since 1872. Red hot stones hurled 1,600 feet above the cone dropped down the flanks of the mountain with deafening sound. One stone thrown out weighed two tons, while 1,844 violent explosions were recorded in a single day by the instruments of the seismic observatory.