Note 10 — LETTER II.

In several accounts of former eruptions of Vesuvius, I have found mention of the ashes falling at a much greater distance; that, in the year 472 and 473, they had reached Constantinople: Dio says, that during the eruption of Vesuvius in the time of Titus—"tantus fuit pulvis ut ab eo loco in Africam et Syriam et Ægyptum penetraverit." A book printed at Lecce, in the kingdom of Naples, in mdcxxxii, and intituled, Discorso sopra l'origine de fuochi gettati dal Monte Vesuvio di Gio Francesco Sorrata Spinola Galateo, says, that the 16th of December, 1631, the very day of the great eruption of Vesuvius (though perfectly calm), it rained ashes at Lecce, which is nine days journey from the mountain: that the day was darkened by them, and that they covered the ground three inches deep; that ashes of a different quality fell at Bari the same day; and that at both these places the inhabitants were very greatly alarmed, not being able to conceive the occasion of such a phænomenon. Antonio Bulifon, in his account of the same eruption, says, that the ashes fell, and lay several inches deep at Ariano in Puglia; and I have been assured, by many persons of credit at Naples, that they have been sensible of the fall of ashes, during an eruption, at above two hundred miles distance from Vesuvius. The Abbate Giulio Cesare Bracini, in his account of the eruption of Vesuvius, in 1631, says, that the height of the column of smoak and ashes, taken from Naples by a quadrant, was upwards of thirty miles. Though such uncertain calculations demand but little attention; yet, by what I have seen, I am convinced, that in great eruptions the ashes are sent up to so great a height as to meet with extraordinary currents of air, which is the most probable way of accounting for their having been carried to so great a distance in a few hours. In a book, intituled, Salvatoris Varonis Vesuviani incendii Libri tres: Neapoli, mdcxxxiv, I found a very poetical description of the ashes that lay in the neighbourhood of Vesuvius, after the eruption of 1631, in depth, from twenty to a hundred palms: "Quare," says this author, "multi patrio in solo requirunt patriam, et vix ibi se credunt vivere ubi certo sciant sese natos, adeo totam loci speciem tempestas vertit."