Page:Burning mountains.pdf/21

(21) colour, or a bright white, and in ſome parts a deep green and azure blue (ſo that the whole er had the effect of an iris) all had the apnce of a ſandy deſert. Our adventurers then on the top of ſeven of the moſt conſiderable of  new formed mountains, and looked into their s, which on ſome of them appeared to be litort of half a mile in circumference; and alh the exterior perpendicular heigh of any em did not exceed two hundred feet, the of their inverted cone within was three times eat. It would not have been poſſible to have ed on theſe new mountains near their craters, ey had not taken the precaution of tying a e handkerchief over their mouths and noſtrils; even with that precaution they could not reng, the fumes of the vitriolic acid were ſo exagly penetrating, and of ſuch a ſuffocating y. They found in one a double crater, like unnels joined together; and in all there was  little ſmoke and depoſitions of ſalts and ſul, of the various colours abovementioned, juſt  commonly ſeen adhering to the inner walls of rincipal crater of Veſuvius.

o or three days after they had been there, one e new mouths, into which they had looked, nly made a great exploſion of ſtones, ſmoke, aſhes, which would certainly have proved fatal one who might unfortunately have been at the time of the exploſion. We read of a r accident having proved fatal to more than y people, who had the curioſity to look into crater of the Monte Nuovo, rear Puzzuoli, a ays after its formation, in the year 1538. The of Auguſt, Sir William ſaw a ſudden exploſi ſmoke and aſhes thrown to an extreme height the great crater of Veſuvius, that must have