Page:Burning mountains.pdf/11

(11) ct of Veſuvius, during one of theſe volcanic ſtorms was ſtruck with lightning, whi h having ſhattered many doors and windows, and damaged the furniture, left for ſome time a ſtrong ſmell of ſulphur in the rooms it paſſed through. Out of theſe gigantic and volcanic clouds, beſides the lightning, both dung this eruption and that of 1779, the author ds, he had, with many others, ſeen balls of fire ſue, and ſome of a conſiderable magnitude, which ſtarting in the air, produced nearly the ſame effect that from the air-baloons in fire-works, the electric fire that came out having the appearance of the pents with which thoſe fire-work baloons are often filled. The day on which Naples was in the greateſt danger from the volcanic clouds, two ſmall balls of fire, joined together by a ſmall link like a ain-fhot, fell cloſe to his Caſino at Poſilipo; they ed, and one fell in the vineyard above the ufe, and the other in the ſea, ſo cloſe to it that heard the ſplaſh in the water. The Abbe Jata, in his printed account of this eruption, mentions an enormous ball of this kind which flew out the crater of Veſuvius while he was ſtanding on the edge of it, and which burſt in the air at ſome diſtance form the mountain, ſoon after which he ard a noiſe like the fall of ſtones, or of a heavy shower of hail. During the eruption of the 15th night, few of the inhabitants of Naples, from dread of earthquakes, ventured to go to their beds. The common people were either employed devout proceſions in the ſtreets, or were ſleeping on the quays and open places; the nobility and gentry, having cauſed their horſes to be taken from their carriages, ſlept in them in the ſquares and open places, or on the high roads juſt out of the town. For ſeveral days, while the volcanic ſtorms thunder and lightning laſted, the inhabitants at