CURIOSITIES OF VESUVIUS.

Evening Post, Volume LXVIII, Issue 134, 3 December 1904, Page 12

CURIOSITIES OF VESUVIUS.

The peculiar feature of the present eruption tit Vesuvius is that, while tha discharge of lava has been less than on previous occasions, the explosions have been much more frequent and far -noro violent. One who was present describes the noise as resembling that of a huge mitrailleuse placed with its mouth in the air. In fact (says the Morning Post's correspondent), that is precisely what the volcano has become; for it appears thatithe explosions occurred at about two hundred yards below the lip of the crater so ,that the projectiles were hurled, as it were, through a narrow gun-barrel, and thus emerged with tremendous violence from the mouth. At that distance down, the walls of the cone offered a strong resistance to the shocks, so that these vehement' discharges of volcanic artillery would have gone on unchecked had not, for some reason, the site of the explosion been transferred higher up the cone where the walls were less strong. At that point they soon succumbed to the force of the explosions, with the immediate result that the gigantic gun, its barrel burst, ceased to act.