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72 73 

ANNUAL REGISTER For the YEAR 1772.
published a few months after the event. As I think them very curious, and greatly to my purpose, and as they are rare, I will give you literal translation of such extracts as relate to the formation of the Monte Nuovo. They are bound in one volume. This very scarce volume has been presented by Mr. Hamilton to the British Museum. M. M.
The title of the first is, Dell Incendio di Pozzuolo, Marco Antonio delli Falconi all Illustrissima Signiora Marchesa della Padula mel MDXXXVIII. 
At the head of the second is, Ragionamento del Terremoto, del Nuove Monte, del Aprimento di Terra in Pozzuolo nell' Anno 1538. é della significatione d'essi. Per Piero Giacomo da Toledo; and at the end of the book, Stampata in Nap. per Giovanni Sulztbach Alemano, a 22di Genaro 1539, con grate, e privilegio. 
"First then (says Marco Antonio delli Falconi), will I relate simply and exactly the operations of nature, of which I was either myself an eye-witness, or as they were related to me by those who had been witnesses of them. It is now two years that there have been frequent earthquakes at Pozzuolo, at Naples, and the neighboring parts; on the day and in the night before the appearance of this eruption, above twenty shocks great and small were felt at the above mentioned places. The eruption made its appearance the 29th of September 1538, the feast of St. Michael the angel; it was on a Sunday, about an hour in the night; and as I have been informed, they began to see on that spot, between the hot baths or sweating rooms, and the trepergule, flames of fire, which first made their appearance at the baths, then extended towards Trepergule, and fixing in the little valley that lies between the Monteo Barbara and the hillock called del Pericolo (which was the road to the lake of Avernus and the baths), in a short time the fire increased to such a degree that it burst open the earth in this place, and threw up so great a quantity of ashes and pumice stones mixed with water, as covered the whole country: and in Naples a shower of these ashes and water fell great part of the night. The next morning which was Monday, and the last of the month, the poor inhabitants of Pozzuolo, struck with so horrible a fight, quitted their habitations, covered with that muddy and black shower, which continued in that country the whole day, flying death, but with faces painted with its colors, some with their children in their arms, some with sacks full of their goods, others leading an ass loaded with their frightened family towards Naples, others carrying quantities of birds of various sorts that had fallen dead at the time the eruption began, others again with fish which they had found, and were to be met with in plenty upon the shore, the sea having been at that time considerably dried up. Don Pedro di Toledo, Viceroy of the kingdom, with many gentlemen, went to see so wonderful an appearance; I also, having

having met with the most honorable and incomparable gentleman, Signior Fabritio Moramaldo, on the road, went and saw the eruption and the many wonderful effects of it. The sea towards Baïa had retired a considerable way; though from the quantity of ashes and broken pumice stones thrown up by the eruption, it appeared almost totally dry. I saw likewise two springs in those lately discovered ruins, one before the house that was the queens, of hot and salt water; the other of fresh and cold water, on the shore, about 250 paces nearer to the eruption; some say, that still nearer to the spot where the eruption happened, a stream of fresh water issued forth like a little river. Turning towards the place of the eruption, you saw mountains of smoke, part of which was very black and part very white rise up to a great height; and in the midst of the smoke at times, deep-colored flames burst forth with huge stone and ashes, and you heard a noise like the discharge of a number of great artillery. It appeared to me as if Typheus and Enceladus from Ishia and Etna with in numerable giants, or those from the Campi Phlegrei (which according to the opinions of some were situated in this neighborhood), were come to wage war again with Jupiter. The natural historians may perhaps reasonably say, that the wife poets meant no more by giants, then exhalations, shut up in the bowels of the earth, which, not finding a free passage, open one by their own force and impulse, and form mountains, as those which ocsioned this eruption have been seen to do; and methought I saw those torrents of burning smoke that Pindar deserves in an eruption of Etna, now called Mon Gibello in Sicily, an imitation of which, as some say. Virgil wrote these lines: "Ipse sed borrificis junta tonat" Aetna ruinis, &c.
After the stones and ashes with clouds of this smoke had been sent up, by the impulse of the fire and windy exhalation (as you see in a great cauldron that boils), into the middle region of the air, overcome by their own natural weight, when from distance the strength they had received from impulse was spent, rejected likewise by the cold and unfriendly region, you saw them fall thick, and by degrees, the condensed smoke clear away, raining ashes with water and stones of different sizes, according to the distance from the place; then by degrees with the same noise and smoke it threw out stones and ashes again, and so on by fits. This continued two days and nights, when the smoke and force of the fire began to abate. The fourth day, which was Thursday at 22 o'clock, there was so great an eruption, there was so great an eruption, that, as I was in the Gulph of Puzzole coming from Ischia, and not far from Misenum, I saw, in a short time, many columns of smoke shoot up, with the soft terrible noise I ever heard, and, bending over the sea, came near our boat, which was four miles or more from the place of " their 

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