Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/349

 VESUVIUS 329 brother of the preceding, born in April, 1729, died in Paris, Sept. 27, 1808. His career at the theatre extended from 1749 to 1781, du- ring most of which time he held the posts of ballet master and first dancer. He was popu- larly known as the " god of dancing," but his talent was executive rather than inventive ; and he left little worthy of his reputation, his chief compositions being the ballets of Endy- mion and Le nid d'oiseaux. He was exceed- ingly ignorant and vain. " There are but three great men in Europe," he once observed, "the king of Prussia, M. Voltaire, and myself." His vanity was so original and amusing as to of- fend no one, and rather added to his reputa- tion. In other respects he was a man of great honesty and amiability. HI. Marie Au- gnste, called Vestris-Allard, or Vestris II. , natu- ral son of the preceding, born in Paris, March 27, 1760, died there, Dec. 6, 1842. He made his debut in 1772, and from 1780 to 1816 was first dancer at the opera. He appeared for the last time at the age of 75, at a bene- fit given to Mme. Taglioni, and won great ap- plause. Though inferior in dignity to his fa- ther, he surpassed him in strength and agil- ity. He retired from the stage in 1819, and was professor in the conservatory till 1828. IV. Angnste Armand, son of the preceding, made his debut in 1800 in a ballet in which his father and grandfather also took part. He had a great reputation throughout Europe. V. Madame (BARTOLOZZI), wife of the preceding, born in London in 1797, died Aug. 9, 1856. She was the granddaughter of Bartolozzi the engraver, was married in 1813, and in 1815 made her first appearance upon the Italian stage as Pro- serpina in the opera of that name. Subse- quently she became one of the most popular English actresses of the day, particularly in male parts which admitted of a display of her figure. She excelled in ballad music, in which her voice, a sweet and powerful contralto, ap- peared to great advantage. Late in life she married Charles Mathews the younger, but re- tained her former name, and had the manage- ment successively of several London theatres. VESUVIUS, a volcano of southern Italy, on the E. shore of the bay of Naples, 8 m. E. S. E. of the city. It is the eastern extremity and the principal vent of a chain of volcanoes ex- tending from it through the Phlegrsean fields to the islands of Procida and Ischia. Before the Christian era Ischia seems to have been the principal scene of volcanic disturbance in this district, and we have no record of any eruption of Vesuvius previous to that of A. D. 79, by which Pompeii and Herculaneum were destroyed. It is frequently mentioned by the older writers without reference to its volcanic character, bt Strabo inferred from its struc- ture that it had been a volcano, and Diodorus Siculus says it had " many signs of having been burning in ancient times." Viewed from Na- ples, Vesuvius appears to have two peaks, which are called respectively Somma and Vesuvius. But the ancient mountain, according to Strabo, had but one, a truncated cone with an even outline ; and it is to be inferred from Plutarch .that it had a crater with steep cliffs, the inte- rior of which was overgrown with wild vines. The flanks of the mountain were covered with cultivated fields, and on the bay at its foot were Pompeii and Herculaneum. The site of the latter is now occupied by the village of Resina. It is supposed that the walls of this ancient cone were destroyed in the eruption of 79, when the present cone was formed. In this eruption only scoria) and ashes were ejected, and there is no well authenticated record of a flow of lava from the mountain before 1036, when the lava is said to have reached the sea, although eruptions had taken place in 203, 472, 512, 685, and 993. In the eruption of 472 the ashes were carried as far as Constantinople, and in that of 512 to Tripoli. Other eruptions occurred in 1049, 1138 or 1139, and 1306, during the last of which terrible earthquakes shook the surrounding country, and destroyed Isernia and Brindisi and many thousand lives. In 1198 Solfatara was in eruption, and in 1302 Ischia, both discharging lava. With the ex- ception of a slight eruption in 1500, Vesuvius was quiet till 1631 ; but during this period Etna was unusually active, and in 1538 (Sept. 29 and 30) a volcanic cone, now called Monte Nuovo, was raised in the bay of Baiaa 440 ft. high, covering an area 8,000 ft. in circumfer- ence. During the 131 years preceding the eruption of 1631 the sides of the crater be- came overgrown with trees and shrubs, be- low which was a plain where cattle were pas- tured. The eruption, which began in Decem- ber, 1631, and lasted till February, 1632, was accompanied with many streams of lava and torrents of boiling water, which overflowed the towns at its base and destroyed many thou- sand lives. After this eruption the cone was 1,530 ft. lower than that of Somma, although it had previously been higher. During the last century the eruptions increased in frequency. That of 1779 is described by Sir William Ham- ilton as among the grandest of these phenom- ena. White smoke like heaps of cotton rose four times as high as the mountain, and spread about it to a proportional extent. Into these clouds stones, scoria?, and ashes were projected at least 10,000 ft. high. On subsequent days columns of fire shot forth three times as high as the mountain, and large masses of rock were thrown out, one of which was 108 ft. in cir- cumference. The eruption of June, 1794, de- stroyed the town of Torre del Greco by a stream of lava estimated by Breislak to con- tain more than 46,000,000 cubic feet, which flowed into the sea in a mass 1,204 ft. wide and 15 ft. high. Eruptions have occurred du- ring the present century in 1804, 1805, 1809, 1812, 1813, 1817, 1820, 1822, 1828, 1831, 1834, 1838, 1841, 1845, 1847, 1849, 1850, 1855, 1858, 1861, 1865, 1868, and 1872. That of 1822 broke up the whole top of the mountain, and formed