nt-Professor in
one of the Universities.

Assistant-Professors Signor Franco, who is a priest, and Signor
Francesco Cozzolino, a priest also, entrusted with the festive mass for
the Observatory, hastened to assist the dying. On my own return thither,
the sad spectacle of the dead and dying awaited me; the former were
conveyed, through the assistance of the municipal officer of Resina, to
the Cemetery, and the latter to the Hospital. But we must leave this
scene of grief and sorrow, and return to the eruption.

The fissure of the cone on the north-west side was large and deep, and
extended into the Atria del Cavallo, about 300 metres. No mouth opened
along the cleft of the cone itself; all the lava issued from that part
which extended into the Atria. From previous experience I should have
expected to have seen the formation of adventitious cones along the
widest part of the fissure, which is never that most elevated, and these
discharging from their summits aeriform matter frequently mixed with
projectiles, and from their base lava; but on this occasion no cone
appeared at the widest part of the fissure, but a long hillock was
formed like a little chain of mountains, one point of which was elevated
about fifty metres above the plain beneath, and bearing no resemblance
to a cone.

Another fissure opened in the cone on the south side, which did not
extend to the base, and lava issued from this and flowed in the
direction of the Camaldoli. Streams of less importance furrowed the cone
in other directions, but the largest quantity of lava proceeded from the
fissure in the Atria del Cavallo, below the hillock or miniature chain
of collines just described. This lava stream was for some time
restrained within the Atria del Cavallo, among the holes and
inequalities of the lavas of 1871, but these being filled up and
overcome, it divided into two branches--the smaller one flowing through
a hollow which separated the lavas of 1867 from those of 1871, and made
its way over the lavas of 1858, threatening Resina, but stopped as soon
as it reached the first cultivated ground; the larger branch
precipitated itself into the Fossa della Vetrana, occupying the whole
width, about 800 metres; and traversing the entire length of 1,300
metres in three hours. It dashed into the Fossa di Faraone; here it
again divided into two streams, one overlying the lava of 1868, on the
Plain of the Novelle, partially covering the cultivated ground and
c