g, while the volcano poured forth its contents like a fountain,
and the electric display was terrifying, constant claps of thunder
following the lurid flashes of lightning, which gave the sky a blood-red
hue.

Shortly after three o'clock in the morning the explosive energy of the
mighty mass culminated. The whole cone burst open with a tremendous
earthquake shock, from the heart of the recently silent mountain came a
deafening roar, and red-hot rocks, like the balls from nature's mighty
artillery, were hurled a half mile into the air, while a dense mass of
ashes and sand was flung to three or four times this height. All the
next day the terrible detonation kept up, and a hail of bullet-like
stones poured downward from the skies. Rarely has a more terrible Sunday
been seen. It was as if the demons of earth and air were let loose and
were seeking to destroy man and his puny works.

THE CRISIS OF THE ERUPTION.

This frightful explosion of the 8th of April was the worst of the
dreadful display of volcanic forces, but the work kept up with
diminishing intensity much of the following week. The ashes and cinders
continued to pour down in suffocating showers, covering the ground to
a depth of four or five feet in the vicinity of the volcano and to a
considerable depth at Naples, ten miles away. The sun disappeared
behind the thick cloud that filled the air, and the scene resembled that
described by Pliny more than eighteen hundred years before.

Of Bosco Trecase nothing was left but the large stone church and a few
houses. Another river of lava reached the outskirts of Torre del Greco,
and a third stopped at the cemetery of Torre Annunziata. Those towns
escaped, but thousands of acres of fertile cultivated land, with farm
houses and stock, were destroyed. The peninsular railway up the mountain
was ruined and the large hotel burned. One writer tells the following
tale of what he saw on that fatal Saturday and Sunday:

"On the road I met hundreds of families in flight, carrying their few
miserable possessions. The spectacle of collapsing carts and fainting
women was frequently seen. When one reached the lava stream a stupefying
spectacle presented itself. From a point on the mountain between the
towns I saw four rivers of molten fire, one of which, 200 feet wide
and over 40 deep, was moving slowly and majestically onward, devouring
vineyards and olive groves. I witnessed the destruction of a farm house
enveloped on three