very start the scene was
terrible and awe-inspiring. From the summit of the mountain a column
of fire fully 1,000 feet leaped upward and lighted by its awful glare
the sky and sea for miles around. Occasionally great masses of molten
stone, some weighing as much as a ton were, accompanied by a
thunderous noise, ejected from the crater and sent crashing down the
mountain side, causing the natives, even as far as Naples, to quake
with fear, abandon their homes and fall, praying, on their knees. One
of the immense streams of lava which flowed from the crater's mouth
was more than 200 feet wide and, ever broadening, kept advancing at
the rate of 21 feet a minute.

The first great modern eruption was that of 1631, eleven years after
the pilgrim fathers landed on Plymouth rock. A sudden tidal wave of
lava, utterly unexpected, engulfed 18,000 people, many of the coast
towns being wholly and the remainder partially wiped out.

In 1707 the volcano sent forth a cloud of ashes so dense that at
midday in the streets of Naples the blackness of the darkest night
reigned supreme. The shrieks of terror stricken women pierced the air
and the churches were crowded by the populace. The relics of San
Januarius--his skull among them--were carried in procession through
the streets.

Thirty years later a stream of lava one mile wide and containing
300,000,000 cubic feet burst from the mountain side. The next notable
eruption was that of 1760, when new cones formed at the side and gave
forth lava, smoke and ashes. Seven years later the king of Naples
hastily retreated into the capital from the palace at Portici,
threatened by a fresh outburst, and found the Neapolitans again in
confusion.

An eruption lasting a year and a half commenced in 1793. Lava was
emitted for fifteen hours and the sea boiled 100 yards from the coast.

That the Vesuvius eruptions are gaining in frequency is attested by
the record of the nineteenth century, surpassing as it does that of
the eighteenth. The first of note occurred in 1822, when the top of
the great cone fell in and a lava stream a mile in width poured out.
Twelve years later a river of lava nine miles long wiped out a town of
500 houses.

Lava flowed almost to the gates of Naples in 1855 and caused a
deplorable loss of property to the cultivated region above.

Blocks of stone forty-five feet in circumference were hurled down the
mountain by the spectacular outburst of 1872. Two lava floods rushed