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erect defence from the lofty wails of their city. After deſtroying ſeveral convents, churches, and villages, this fiery current directed its courſe to Catania, where it poured impetuouſly over the ramparts, which are near ſixty feet in height, and covered up five of its baſtions, with the intervening mountains. After laying waſte a great part of this beautiful city, and entirely deſtroying ſeveral valuable remains of antiquity, its further progreſs was stopped by the ocean, over whole banks it poured its deſtructive current in its courſe from the rent in the mountain, till its arrival in the ſea, it is ſaid to have totally deſtroyed the property of near thirty thouſand perſons.
Eruption of Mount Vefvius in Italy, 1794.
THE mountain had been remarkably quiet for ſeven months before the late eruption, nor did the uſual ſmoke iſſue from its crater, but at ones it emitted ſmall clouds of ſmoke that floated the air in the ſhape of little trees. It was remarked by the Father Antonio di Petrizzi, a capuchin friar (who printed an account of the late eruption) from his convent cloſe to the unfortunate town of Torre del Greco, that for some days predating this eruption, a thick vapour was ſeen to around the mountain, about a quarter of a mile neath its crater, and it was obſerved by him and others at the ſame time, that both the ſun and the moon had often an unuſual reddiſh cast,
The water of the great fountain at Torre del Greco began to decreaſe ſome days before the eruption, ſo that the wheels of a corn mill, worked by the water, moved very ſlowly; it was neceſſary in the other wells of the town and its neighbourhood to lengthen the ropes daily, in order to reach
