(6)
the water; and ſome of the wells became quite dry. Although moſt of the inhabitants were ſenſible this phenomenon, not one of them ſeems to have ſuſpected the true cauſe of it. Eight days alſo before the eruption, a man and two boys, being in vineyard above Torre del Greco (and preciſely on the foot where one of the new mouths opened whence the principal current of lava that deſtroyed the town iſſued) were much alarmed by a ſudden puff of ſmoke which iſſued from the earth cloſe to them, and was attended with a ſlight exploſion.
Had this circumſtance, with that of the ſubteranneous noiſes heard at Reſina for two days before the eruption (with the additional one of the creaſe of water in the wells) been communicated at the time, it would have required no great foreſight to have been certain than an eruption of the volcano was near at hand, and that its force was directed particularly towards that part of the mountain.
On the 12th of June 1794, in the morning, there was a violent fall of rain, and ſoon after the inhabitants of Reſina, ſituated directly over the ancient town of Herculaneum, were ſenſible of a rumbling ſubterraneous noiſe, which was not heard at Naples.
From the month of January to the month May, the atmoſphere had been generally calm, and there was continued dry weather, In the month of May there was a little rain, but the weather was unuſually ſultry. For ſome days preceding the eruption t(illegible text) Duke della Torre, a learned and ingenious nobleman, who published two letters upon the ſubject of the eruption, obſerved by his electrometers, that the atmoſphere was charged in excess with the electric fluid, and continued ſo for several days during the eruption.
About eleven o'clock on the night of the 12
