Observations on Mount Vesuvius, Mount Etna, and other volcanos: in a series of letters, addressed to the Royal society, from the Honourable Sir W. Hamilton ... / To which are added, explanatory notes by the author, hitherto unpublished.
- William Hamilton
- Date:
- 1774
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Observations on Mount Vesuvius, Mount Etna, and other volcanos: in a series of letters, addressed to the Royal society, from the Honourable Sir W. Hamilton ... / To which are added, explanatory notes by the author, hitherto unpublished. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![in the neighbourhood of the mountain, but hot 'at Naples : there were no clouds in the fty at this time, except thofe of fmoak ilTiiing from the crater of Vefuvius, I was much pleafed with this phenomenon, Ji x which I had not fe.en before in that per¬ fection ,[vz] In all accounts of great eruptions of Mount Etna and Mount Vefuvius, I have found mention of this fort of lightning. Pliny the younger, in his fecond letter to Tacitus upon the eruption of Vefuvius in the time of Titus, fays, that a black and horrible cloud covered them at Mifenum (which is above fifteen miles from the Volcano), and that dafhes of zig-zag fire, like lightning, but Wronger, burft from it; thefe are his words: £e ab alterolatere nubes atra et hotrenda <£ ignei fpiritus tortis vibratifque difcurfibus rupta, hi longas fiammarum hguras dehifcebat; fulgoribus <c ills? et fimiies et majores erant.5’ This was evidently the fame electrical lire, and with which I am convinced that the fmoak of all Volcanos is pregnant, In fe- veral accounts of the great eruption of Vefuvius in 1631, mention is made of damage done by the lightning that iiTued from the column of fmoak. Bulifon, in particular, fays, that, in the neigh¬ bourhood of the Volcano, people were ilruck dead in the fame manner as if by lightning, without having their deaths finged. Pliny mentions a like inftance, Monday](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b3051390x_0048.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
