e nine refer to Vesuvius, the
earliest being entitled "Primi Studii Meteorologici fatti sul R.
Osservatorio Vesuviano," published in 1853. He was also author, in
conjunction with Professor A. Scacchi, of an elaborate report upon the
Volcanic Region of Monte Vulture, and on the Earthquake (commonly called
of Melfi) of 1851. These, however, by no means exhaust the stock of
Palmieri's labours.

The following Memoir of Signor Palmieri on the eruption of Vesuvius in
April of this year (1872), brief as it is, embraces two distinct
subjects, viz., his narrative as an eye-witness of the actual events of
the eruption as they occurred upon the cone and slopes of the mountain,
and his observations as to pulses emanating from its interior, as
indicated by his Seismograph, and as to the electric conditions of the
overhanging cloud of smoke (so called) and ashes, as indicated by his
bifilar electrometer, both established at the Observatory. The two last
have but an indirect bearing upon Vulcanology. The narrative of the
events of the eruption is characterised by exactness of observation and
a sobriety of language--so widely different from the exaggerated style
of sensational writing that is found in almost all such accounts--that I
do the author no more than justice in thus expressing my view of its
merits.

Nor should a special narration, such as this, become less important or
suffer even in popular estimation by the fact that so recently my
friend, Professor J. Phillips, has given to the world the best general
account of Vesuvius, in its historical and some of its scientific
aspects, which has yet appeared. That monograph--with its sparkling
style, and scholarly digressions, as well as for its more direct
merits--will, no doubt, become the manual for many a future visitor to
the volcanic region of Naples; but it, like the following Memoir of
Palmieri, and in common with almost every work that has appeared on the
subject of Volcanoes, contains a good deal which, however interesting,
and remotely related to Vulcanology, does not properly belong to the
body of that branch of cosmical science, as I understand its nature and
limits.

It tends but little, for example, to clear our views, or enlarge our
knowledge of the vast mechanism in which the Volcano originates, and
that by which its visible mass is formed, that we should ascertain the
electric condition of the atmosphere above its eruptive cone, or into
what crystallographic cla