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 / To which are added, explanatory notes by the author, hitherto unpublished.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 / To which are added, explanatory notes by the author, hitherto unpublished.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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![are covered about ten or fifteen feet, with pumice and fragments of lava, fome of which weigh three pounds (which lafl cir- cumftance I mention, to fhew, that, in a great eruption, Vefuvius has thrown ftones of this weight fix miles [p], which is its diftance from Pompeii, in a direct line) ; upon this ftratum of pumice, or rapillii as they call them here, is a ftratum of [/>] I have fince found in this hratum of erupted matter at Pompeii, hones weighing eight pounds : but many accounts of the great eruption of Vefuvius, particularly that of Antonio Bulifon, mention that a hone like a bomb was thrown from the crater of Ve¬ fuvius in 1631 > and fell upon the Marquis of Laura's houfe at Nola, which it fet on fire. As Nola is twelve miles from Vefuvius, this circumhance feems rathey ex¬ traordinary : however* I have feen hones of an enormous hze fhot up to a very great height by Mount Veftiviusi In May 1771, having a hop watch in my hand, I ob- ferved that one of thefe hones was eleven feconds falling from its greateh height, into the crater from whence it had been ejefted; In 1767, a folid hone, meafuring twelve feet in height, and forty-five in circumference, was thrown a quarter of a mile from the crater; the eruption of 1767, though by much the moh violent of this century, was, comparatively to thofe of the year 79 and 1631, very mild* E excellent](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b3051390x_0065.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
