Note 6 — LETTER II.
Reading edition
From what I have seen and read of eruptions of Vesuvius and Etna, I am convinced that Volcano's lie dormant for several years, nay even for centuries, as probably was the case of Vesuvius before its eruption in the reign of Titus, and certainly was so before that of the year 1631. When I arrived at Naples in 1764, Vesuvius was quiet, very seldom smoak was visible on its top; in the year 1766, it seemed to take fire, and has never since been three months without either throwing up red hot stones, or disgorging streams of lava, nor has its crater been ever free from smoak. At Naples, when a lava appears, and not till then, it is styled an eruption; whereas I look upon the five nominal eruptions I have been witness to, from March 1766 to May 1771, as, in effect, but one continued eruption.