rim of the ancient
crater that had enclosed Spartacus and his men less than two hundred years
before had been torn away and destroyed, its remaining portion on the
landward side retaining the old name of Mons Summanus. Between this
remnant of the old wall of the crater and the scene of wreckage on the
southern face of the Mountain, there now appeared the great cleft, the
horse-shoe shaped valley called the Atrio del Cavallo, which separates the
two peaks of the whole summit. A fragment only of the original crater,
known as the Pedimentina, still remains on the seaward side above Torre
del Greco. From that terrible day, so vividly described by the Younger
Pliny, to our own times, a period stretching over 1800 years, a vast
number of eruptions, great and small, have been enumerated, for owing to
the nearness of Vesuvius to one of the largest cities in Europe, every
incident connected with its activity has been carefully noted, at least
since the time of the Renaissance. Out of the many upheavals we propose to
select the eruptions of 1631 and 1779, as being amongst the most
significant.

Ever since an outburst in the year 1500, the Mountain appears to have
lapsed into a remarkable condition of quietude, even of apparent
extinction, for over a century and a quarter, during which period, it may
be remarked, the Sicilian volcano of Etna was unusually active. Once more
the summit of Vesuvius was beginning to assume the form it had borne in
the days previous to the overthrow of Pompeii; the riven crater was
becoming filled with dense undergrowth and even with forest trees, amidst
which wild boar made their lairs and were occasionally hunted. The learned
Abate Giulio Braccini, whose account of the eruption of 1631 is the most
graphic and accurate we possess, explored the crater shortly before the
outbreak of the volcano, but found little to suggest any idea of an
approaching convulsion. He reckoned the deep depression occupying the
crest of the mountain to be about five miles in circumference, and to take
about a thousand paces of walking so as to reach the lowest point within
its area. He remarked abundance of brushwood on its sides, and observed
cattle grazing peacefully upon the open grassy patches in the midst of the
over-grown space. A deep crack, however, ran from end to end of the whole
crater, which allowed persons so minded to descend amidst rocks and
boulders to a large plain below the surface, whereon Braccini found th