ERUPTION OF MOUNT VESUVIUS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XII, Issue 828, 8 February 1868, Page 2

ERUPTION OF MOUNT VESUVIUS.

The correspondent of the London Times, writing from Naples, Nov. 21, says : Since writing to you my last letter, the eruption of Vesuvius has made such rapid and brilliant progress, that I cannot refrain from sending you some additional details. For the moment, it seems to have calmed our political excitement ; every one is talking of tlie “ Mountain,” not in a political, but in a physical sense, and thousands are speculating on the influence which it will exercise on the movements of foreigners. For one or two days it has been enveloped in such thick clouds that all we have witnessed from a distance has been at intervals the lighting up of the dense mass with a lurid red colour. Yesterday, however, a bitter north-east wind swept and cleared the cloud-capped summit, revealing a scene of extraordinary magnificence. Notwithstanding the stormy and rainy state of the weather, many parties have ascended this week, as has been evident at a distance from the torches glittering like glowworms on the rugged sides of Vesuvius, and from the report of friends who ascended, some observations are given as to its actual state. Starting from Naples at about 8 o’clock, they got up to the Hermitage at about half-past ten o’clock, well soaked with the rain, and were by no means displeased to find an abundant “spread” hud out for another party of more provident *’ Britishers. Imagine a midnight pic-nic on Vesuvius, with pigeon pie and champagne ad libitum ! Still the rain descended in torrents, and it was not until after two o’clock in the morning that in sheer desperation they emerged from their hospitable shelter and commenced the heavy ascent of the grand cone. “ Yet all our sufferings and fatigues,” they say, “ were well repaid by the grandeur of the spectacle. To the crater itself we could not reach, but as near to it as was safe we sat down on a monticello of cinders, and watched the scene. Vesuvius shook and trembled with, the efforts it was making ; it panted and roared like some gigantic furnace ; there was a sound rapid and repeated as of the discharge of a volley of musketry, and there rose to the heavens, full 1000 feet, a gorgeous mass of lava, stones both great'and small, and fine ashes. ” As was predicted, too, at the beginning of the week, the lava is new coming down towards the Hermitage. We can mark its red and sinuous course even from Naples ; and there is a promise of greater splendour than any we have yet witnessed. We can hear, too, the thunders of Nature’s artillery, while each discharge is followed by a display which it is useless to attempt to describe. Different, yet scarcely less grand, are the day effects. Volumes and volumes of dark smoke are shot up perpendicularly into the air, and then, falling and circling and rolling one over the other, file off file like heavy battalions towards Capri. The column of smoke is perceptible to the eye all across the Bay, lingering horizontally until it derives a fresh impulse from each successive eruptidn.