arer to view, Torre del Greco in flames, and
clouds of black smoke, with falling houses, presented a dark and
tragical foreground, heightened by the subterranean thunder of the
mountain, and the groans and lamentations of fifteen thousand ruined
men, women and children.

The heavy clouds of ashes which were thrown out on this occasion
gathered in the early morning into a mighty shadow over Naples and the
neighborhood; the sun rose pale and obscure, and a long, dim twilight
reigned afterward.

Such were the phenomena on the western side of Vesuvius. They were
matched by others on the eastern aspect, not visible at Naples, except
by reflection of their light in the atmosphere. The lava on this side
flowed eastward, along a route often traversed by lava, by the broken
crest of the Cognolo and the valley of Sorienta. The extreme length to
which this current reached was not less than an Italian mile. The cubic
content was estimated to be half that already assigned to the western
currents. Taken together they amounted to 20,744,445 cubic metres, or
2,804,440 cubic fathoms; the constitution of the lava being the same in
each, both springing from one deep-seated reservoir of fluid rock.

The eruption of lava ceased on the 16th, and then followed heavy
discharges of ashes, violent shocks of earthquakes, thunder and
lightning in the columns of vapors and ashes, and finally heavy rains,
lasting till the 3d of July. The barometer during all the eruption was
steady.

Breislak made an approximate calculation of the quantity of ashes which
fell on Vesuvius during this great eruption, and states the result as
equal to what would cover a circular area 6 kilometres (about 3 1/2
English miles) in radius, and 39 centimetres (about 15 inches) in depth.

STRANGE EFFECTS

Among the notable things which attended this eruption, it is recorded
that in Torre del Greco metallic and other substances exposed to
the current were variously affected. Silver was melted, glass became
porcelain, iron swelled to four times its volume and lost its texture.
Brass was decomposed, and its constituent copper crystallized in
cubic and octahedral forms aggregated in beautiful branches. Zinc was
sometimes turned to blende. During the eruption, the lip of the crater
toward Bosco Tre Case on the south east, fell in, or was thrown off, and
the height of that part was reduced 426 feet.

On the 17th, the sea was found in a boiling state 100 yards off the ne