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 / To which are added, explanatory notes by the author, hitherto unpublished.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 / To which are added, explanatory notes by the author, hitherto unpublished.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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![obfervation : but as all the peafants here agree in their account of the terrible thun¬ der and lightning, which laded almoft the whole time of the eruption, upon the mountain only I think it a circumftance worth attending to. Befides the lightning, which perfedtty refembled the common forked lightning, there were many meteors, like what are vulgarly called falling ftars. A peafant, in my neighbourhood, loft eight hogs, by the afhes falling into the trough with their food: they grew giddy, and died in a few hours. The laft day of the eruption, the afhes, which fell abundantly upon the mountain, were as white almoft as fnow [0] ; and the old people here allure [0] In fame accounts of an eruption of Vefuvius in 1660, I find mention made of afnes which fell in the fhape of croifes, and were looked upon as highly mira¬ culous ; but in one book upon this fubjedt, intituled, Aihanafii Kircheri Soc. Jef De prodighjis cruczhus, Ro/nas, mdclxi, a very philofophical account is given of this phamomenon ; he fays, that, in 1660, from the 16th ot Auguft to the 15 th of October, Vefuvius caft up alhes, impregnated with nitrous, faline, and bitu- i me,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b3051390x_0062.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
