"Ipse sed horrificis juxta tonat Ætna ruinis, &c.
"After the stones and ashes with clouds of thick smoak had been sent up, by the impulse of the fire and windy exhalation (as you see in a great cauldron that boils), into the middle region of the air, overcome by their own natural weight, when from distance the strength they had received from impulse was spent, rejected likewise by the cold and unfriendly region, you saw them fall thick, and, by degrees, the condensed smoak clear away, raining ashes with water and stones of different sizes, according to the distance from the place: then, by degrees, with the same noise and smoak, it threw out stones and ashes again, and so on by fits. This continued two days and nights, when the smoak and force of the fire began to abate. The fourth day, which was Thursday, at 22 o'clock, there was so great an eruption, that, as I was in the gulph of Puzzole, coming from Ischia, and not far from Misenum, I saw, in a short time, many columns of smoak shoot up, with the most terrible noise I ever heard, and, bending over the sea, came near our boat, which was four miles or more from the place of their birth; and the quantity of ashes, stones, and smoak, seemed as if they would cover the whole earth and sea. Stones, great and small, and ashes more or less, according to the impulse of the fire and exhalations, began to fall, so that a great part of this country was covered with ashes; and many, that have seen it, say, they reached the vale of Diana, and some parts of Calabria, which are more than 150 miles from Pozzuolo. The Friday and Saturday nothing but a little smoak appeared; so that many, taking courage, went upon the spot, and say, that with the stones and ashes thrown up, a mountain has been formed in that valley, not less than three miles in circumference, and almost as high as the Monte Barbaro, which is near it, covering the Canettaria, the castle of Trepergule, all those buildings and the greatest part of the baths that were about them; extending South towards the sea, North as far as the lake of Avernus, West to the Sudatory, and joining East to the foot of the Monte Barbaro; so that this place has changed its form and face in such a manner as not to be known again: a thing almost incredible, to those who have not seen it, that in so short a time so considerable a mountain could have been formed. On its summit there is a mouth in the form of a cup, which may be a quarter of a mile in circumference, though some say it is as large as our market-place at Naples, from which there issues a constant smoak; and though I have seen it only at a distance, it appears very great. The Sunday following, which was the 6th of October, many people going to see this phænomenon, and some having ascended half the mountain, others more, about 22 o'clock there happened so sudden and horrid an eruption, with so great a smoak, that many of these people were stifled, some of which could never be found. I have been told, that the number of the dead or lost amounted to twenty-four. From that time to this, nothing remarkable happened; it seems as if the eruption returned periodically, like the ague or gout. I believe henceforward it will not have such force, though the eruption of the Sunday was accompanied with showers of ashes and water, which fell at Naples, and were seen to extend as far as the mountain of Somma, called Vesuvius by the ancients; and, as I have often remarked, the clouds of smoak proceeding from the eruption moved in a direct line towards that mountain, as if these places had a correspondence and connection one with the other. In the night, many beams and columns of fire were seen to proceed from this eruption, and some like flashes of lightning[38]. We have then, many circumstances for our observation, the earthquakes, the eruption, the drying up of the sea, the quantity of dead fish and birds, the birth of springs, the shower of ashes with water and without water, the innumerable trees in that whole country, as far as the Grotto of Lucullus, torn from their roots, thrown down, and covered with ashes, that it gave one pain to see them: and as all these effects were produced by the same cause that produces earthquakes; let us first enquire how earthquakes are produced, and from thence we may easily comprehend the cause of the abovementioned events." Then follows a dissertation on earthquakes, and some curious conjectures relative to the phænomena which attended this eruption, clearly and well expressed, considering, as the author himself apologizes, that at that time the Italian language had been little employed on such subjects.