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 deſtroyed anyone within half a mile of it: and on the 19th of July a party not only had viſited the crater, but had deſcended 170 feet within it. Which they were on the mountain, two whirlwinds, exactly like thoſe that form water-ſpouts at ſea, made their appearance; and one of them, which was very near, made a ſtrange ruſhing noiſe, and having taken up a great quantity of the fine aſhes, formed them into an elevated ſpiral column, which, with whirling motion and great rapidity, was carried towards the mountain of Somma, where it broken and was diſperſed. One of our author's ſervants, employed in collecting of ſulphur, or ſal ammoniac, which cryſtalizies near the ſumaroli, as they are called (and which are the ſpots whence the hot vapour iſſues out of the freſh lava) found to his great ſurprize, an exceeding cold wind iſſue from a fiſſure very near the hot ſumaroli upon his leg. In a vineyard not in the ſame line with the new-formed mountains juſt deſcribed, but in a right line from them, at the diſtance of little more than a mile from Torre del Greco, they found three or four more of theſe new-formed mountains with craters out of which the lava flowed, and by uniting with the ſtreams that came from the higher mouths, and adding to their heat and fluidity, enabled the whole current to make ſo rapid a progreſs over the unfortunate town, as ſcarcely to allow its inhabitants ſufficient time to eſcape with their lives. The rich vineyards belonging to the Torre del Greco, and which produced the wine called Lacrima Chrifti, that were buried and totally deſtroyed by this lava, conſiſted of more than three thouſand acres; but the deſtruction of the vineyards by the torrents of mud and water, at the foot of the mountain of Somma, was much more extenſive.

In that part of the country, the firſt ſigns of a