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waſhed off the volcanic matter, it ſcarcely weighed three.
In the town of Somma, our author found ⟨ſome⟩ churches and about ſeventy houſes without roofs, ⟨and⟩ full of aſhes. The great damage on that ſide of ⟨the⟩ mountain, by the fall of the aſhes and the torrent happened on the 18th, 19thth, and 20th of June, and on the 12th of July. The 19th, the aſhes ⟨fell⟩ ſo thick at Somma, that unleſs a perſon kept in motion, he was ſoon fixed to the ground by then. This fall of aſhes was accompanied alſo with loud reports, and frequent flaſhes of the volcanic lightning, ſo that, ſurrounded by ſo many horrors, it was impoſſible for the inhabitants to remain in the town and they all fled; the darkneſs was ſuch, although was mid-day, that even with the help of torches was ſcarcely poſſible to keep in the high road. On the 16th of July, ſignor Guiſeppe Sacco went up in the crater, and, according to his account, which had been printed at Naples, the crater is of an irregular oval form, and as he ſuppoſes (nor having been able to meaſure it) of about a mile and a half in circumference; the inſide, as uſual, in the ſhape of an inverted cone, the inner walls of which on the eaſtern ſide are perpendicular; but on the weſtern ſide ⟨of⟩ the crater, which is much lower, the deſcent was practicable, and Sacco with ſome of his companions actually went down one hundred and ſeventy-ſix palms from which ſpot, having lowered a cord with a ſtone tied to it, they found the whole depth of the crate to be about five hundred palms. But ſuch obſervations on the crater of Veſuvius are of little conſequence, as both its form and apparent depth are ſubject to great alterations from day to day.
Greg. Econ. of Nature,
Vol. 2nd page 331.--333
