servants
had been cut off from the outside world and bombarded by the volcano,
their rations consisting of bread, cheese and dried onions, until on
Friday a hardy guide was induced to push through to them with
some provisions. During the eruption the Professor had kept at his
instruments, taking observations day and night and making calculations
in the midst of the inferno. Roughly dressed, he looked like a Western
cowboy after a hard ride in a dust storm. The portico where he stood was
knee deep in ashes, and from the observatory terrace narrow paths had
been cut through the ashes, but as far as the eye could reach an ocean
of ashes and twisted rivers were alone visible, with Vesuvius rising
grimly in the midst. The great monster was enveloped in a cloak of
white, as if buried under a snowstorm, its surface being here and there
slit with gulches in which lava ran. At the bottom of one of those
gulches lay the wrecked remnants of the peninsular railway, a portion
of its twisted cable protruding through the ashes. As the correspondents
ascended the mountain they were surprised by the apparition of
natives, men wrinkled with age, who emerged from dugouts just below
the observatory and offered them milk and eggs, just as if they were
ordinary visitors to the volcano. As they descended they heard the
sound of a mandolin from one of these dugouts. Evidently Vesuvius had no
terrors for these case-hardened veterans.

We have already told the story gleaned by the correspondents from the
daring scientists. Matteucci completed his record of boldness on Friday,
the 13th, by climbing to a point far above the observatory, at the
imminent risk of his life, to observe the conditions then existing. From
what he says he believed the end of the disturbance near, though he did
not venture to predict. As for the ashes, which a light wind was then
blowing in a direction away from Naples, he said: "The ill wind is now
blowing good to other places, for ashes are the best fertilizer it is
possible to use. It is merely a question just now of having too much of
a good thing."

This is a fact so far as the volcanic ash is concerned. An examination
of the ashes a few days ago shows that they will prove an active and
valuable fertilizer. The fertile slopes of Vesuvius have ever been an
allurement to the vine-grower, four crops a year being a temptation no
possible danger could drive him from, and as soon as the mountain grows
surely peaceful aft