ountry-houses; the other flowing on through the Fossa di Faraglione,
over the lava of 1855, reached the villages of Massa and St. Sebastiano,
covering a portion of the houses, and thence continued its course
through the bed of a foss or trench which, contrary to my advice, had
been excavated after the eruption of 1855, in the expectation of
diverting the course of that lava. I did not fail to observe that the
rains which previously descended through these steep channels, would in
future be kept back to filtrate through the scoriae, without ever
reaching the new channel.

The lava of this eruption, meeting with this said excavation, flowed
into it, instead of pursuing its road over the lava of 1855, and thus
invaded highly cultivated ground and towns of considerable value,
extending to the very walls of a country-house belonging to the
celebrated painter, Luca Giordano. This lava stream, having surmounted
the obstacles which the heaps of scoriae in the Atria del Cavallo
presented to it, ran with great velocity (notwithstanding its being
greatly widened out in the Fossa del Vetrano), so that between 10 a.m.
and 11 p.m. it traversed about five kilometres of road, occupying a
surface of five to six square kilometres. If it had not greatly
slackened after midnight, from the failure of supply at its source, in
twenty-four hours more, by occupying Ponticelli, it would have reached
Naples, and flowed into the sea.

Although I had often visited the two villages of Massa and St.
Sebastiano, previously greatly injured by the lava of 1855, yet I could
not well estimate, upon now seeing them again, the number of houses
which had disappeared. Massa seemed to me diminished by about one-third,
and St. Sebastiano by somewhat less than a fourth. But the way of escape
was open to the inhabitants of Massa; whilst a great river of lava
occupying the road leading to St. Giorgio a Cremano would have hindered
the flight of the inhabitants of St. Sebastiano, if they had been
dilatory. The lava stream now separating the two villages is little less
than a kilometre in width, and is about six metres in height.

On the night of the 26th April, the Observatory lay between two torrents
of fire, which emitted an insufferable heat. The glass in the
window-frames, especially on the Vetrana side, was hot and cracking, and
a smell of scorching was perceptible in the rooms. The cone, besides
being furrowed by the lava streams just described, was traverse