w
promontory made by the lava of Torre del Greco, and no boat could remain
near it on account of the melting of the pitch in her bottom. For nearly
a month after the eruption vast quantities of fine white ashes, mixed
with volumes of steam, were thrown out from the crater; the clouds
thus generated were condensed into heavy rain, and large tracts of the
Vesuvian slopes were deluged with volcanic mud. It filled ravines, such
as Fosso Grande, and concreted and hardened there into pumiceous tufa--a
very instructive phenomenon.

Immense injury was done to the rich territory of Somma, Ottajano and
Bosco by heavy rains, which swept along cinders, broke up the road and
bridges, and overturned trees and houses for the space of fifteen days.

There were few years during the nineteenth century in which Vesuvius did
not show symptoms of its internal fires, and at intervals it manifested
much activity, though not equaling the terrible eruptions of its past
history. The severest eruptions in that century were those of 1871 and
1876. In the first a sudden emission of lava killed twenty spectators at
the mouth of the crater, and only spent its fury after San Sebastian and
Massa had been well nigh annihilated. Fragments of rock were thrown up
to the height of 4,000 feet, and the explosions were so violent that
the whole countryside fled panic stricken to Naples. The activity of
the volcano, accompanied by distinct shocks of earthquake, lasted for a
week.

In 1876, for three weeks together, lava streamed down the side of
Vesuvius, sweeping away the village of Cercolo and running nearly to the
sea at Ponte Maddaloni. There were then formed ten small craters within
the greater one. But these were united by a later eruption in 1888, and
pressure from beneath formed a vast cone where they had been.

HARDIHOOD OF THE PEOPLE

It may seem strange that so dangerous a neighborhood should be
inhabited. But so it is. Though Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae lie
buried beneath the mud and ashes belched out of the mouth of Vesuvius,
the villages of Portici and Revina, Torre del Greco and Torre del
Annunziata have taken their place, and a large population, cheerful
and prosperous, flourishes around the disturbed mountain and over the
district of which it is the somewhat untrustworthy safety-valve.

It is thus that man, in his eagerness to cultivate all available parts
of the earth, dares the most frightful perils and ventures into the most