DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6094#0139
Ii6 A TOUR THROUGH
falling suddenly into one of the vallies of
snow, that occupy the higher regions of the
mountain, and melting it down : or, what
I think is {till more probable, that the
melted snow, finding vast caverns and reser-
voirs in the mountain, where it is lodged
for some time, till the excessive heat of the
lava below bursts the sides of these caverns,
produces this phenomenon, which has
been matter of great speculation to the Si-
cilian philosophers, and has employed the
pens of several of them. The same thing
happened in an eruption of Vesuvius last
century, and in an instant swept away
about 500 people, who were marching in
procemon at the foot of the mountain, to
implore the mediation of St. Januarius.
Near to this place we passed through
some beautiful woods of cork and ever-
green oak, growing absolutely out of the
lava, the soil having as yet hardly filled
the crevices of that porous substance; and,
not
falling suddenly into one of the vallies of
snow, that occupy the higher regions of the
mountain, and melting it down : or, what
I think is {till more probable, that the
melted snow, finding vast caverns and reser-
voirs in the mountain, where it is lodged
for some time, till the excessive heat of the
lava below bursts the sides of these caverns,
produces this phenomenon, which has
been matter of great speculation to the Si-
cilian philosophers, and has employed the
pens of several of them. The same thing
happened in an eruption of Vesuvius last
century, and in an instant swept away
about 500 people, who were marching in
procemon at the foot of the mountain, to
implore the mediation of St. Januarius.
Near to this place we passed through
some beautiful woods of cork and ever-
green oak, growing absolutely out of the
lava, the soil having as yet hardly filled
the crevices of that porous substance; and,
not