OF MOUNT VESUVIUS.

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the excavations of that ancient city, that the ashes, which I suppose to have been mixed with water at the fame time, had taken the exact impreffion or mould of whatever they had enclosed; fo that the compartments of the wood work of the windows and doors of the houses remained impreffed on this volcanic tufts, although the wood itself had long decayed, and not an atom of it was to be feen, except when the wood had been burnt, and then you found the charcoal. Having once been prefent at the discovery of the skeleton, in the great street of Pompeii, of a person who had been shut up by the ashes during the eruption of 79, I engaged the men that were digging, to take off the piece of hardened tufo that covered the head, with great care, and, as in a mould just taken off in plafter of Paris, we found the impreffion of the eyes that were fhut, of the nole, mouth, and of every feature perfectly diftinct. A fimilar fpecimen of a mould of this kind, brought from Pompeii, is now in his Sicilian Majefty's Museum at Portici; it had been formed over the breaft of a young woman that had been shut up in the volcanic matter; every fold of a thin drapery that covered her breaft is exactly reprefented in this mould and in the volcanic tufo that filled the ancient theatre of Herculaneum, the exact mould or impreffion of the face of a marble buft, is ftill to be seen, the buft or statue having been long fince removed.”

Sir W. Hamilton now obferves, "that the ftorms of thunder and lightning, attended at times with heavy falls of rain and afhes, caufing the most destructive torrents of water and glutinous mud, mixed with huge ftones, and trees torn up by the roots, continued more or less to afflict the inhabitants on both fides of the volcano, until the feventh of July, when the laft torrent destroyed many hundred acres of cultivated land between the towns of Torre del Greco and Torre dell' Annunziata. Some of these torrents (as our author was credibly affured by eyewitnesses)

In the course of his letter, Sir W. Hamilton mentions the following very extraordinary circumftance" that happened near Scenna, in the Tufcan State, about 18 hours after the commencement of the eruption of Vefuvius, June 15, although that phenomenon might have had no relation to the eruption." This account our author received in a letter from Scenna, dated July 12, 1794. "In the midft of a most violent thunder-ftorm, about a dozen ftones of various weights and dimenfions, fell at the feet of different people, men, women, and children; the ftones are of a quality not found in any part of the Scenese territory; they fell about 18 hours after the enormous eruption of Vesuvius, which circumftance leaves a choice of difficulties in the folution of this extraordinary phenomenon. Either thefe ftones have been generated in this igneous mafs of clouds, which produced fuch unufual thunder, or, which is equally incredible, they were thrown from Vefuvius at a distance of at least 250 miles. The philofophers here incline to the first solution." A piece of one of the largeft ftones, which, when entire, weighed upwards of five pounds, was sent to Sir W. Hamilton for his infpection and opinion. He alfo faw another, which had been fent to Naples entire, and weighed about one pound.

This last and remarkable eruption of Vefuvius could not be faid to have finished (although the force of it was over June 22) until after the 7th of July, when the last cloud broke over it, and formed a tremendous torrent of mud, which took its courfe across the great road between Torre del Greco and the Torre dell' Annunziata, and deftroyed feveral vineyards. We shall now conclude our account of this Italian curiofity with obferving, that though Mount Vefuvius often fills the neighbouring country with terror, yet, as few things in nature are fo abfolutely noxious as not to produce fome good, even this raging volcano by its fulphureous and nitrous manure, and the heat of its fubter

raneous

JOHN STATHAM,

A Remarkable Blind Young Man of Ray Street

Clerkenwell.

Pub, June1-13 by Alex. Hogg 18 Paternosterrow,

THE WONDERFUL BLIND YOUNG MAN.

491

raneous fires, contributes not a little to the uncommon fertility of the country about it, and to the profufion of fruits and herbage with which it is every where covered. Befides, it is fuppofed, that while open and active, the mountain, is lefs hoftile to Naples than it would be if its eruptions were to ceafe, and its ftruggles confined to its own bowels, for then might enfue the most fatal fhocks to the unstable foundation of the whole diftrict of Terra di Lavoro.

Original Particulars of JOHN STATHAM, a remarkable blind Young Man, of Fox-Court, Ray-Street, Clerkenwell, in the County of Middlefex, whofe fingular Perfon is well known throughout the Metropolis of London.

THIS extraordinary character was born on Saffron-Hill, about the year 1768, being blind from his birth, occafioned by a fright which his mother had received while pregnant, from frequently meeting a blind and foolish boy, who then lived near Turnbul-ftreet, and at the fight of whom the always felt herself remarkably affected. The celebrated Doctor Ford, man-midwife, now preacher at Spa-fields Chapel, attended this woman during her lying-in of John. His father having died when he was very young, he was brought up by his father-in-law (who was a brass-founder) in the church of England religion, by which means he had frequent opportunities of hearing divine fervice read with due propriety and energy. On account of his cecity, the only learning he could acquire was by attentively listening to the learning of others, and fuch is the fupreme wisdom of the Creator, that the want of fight is in a great meafure compensated by the acutenefs of his other fenfes. While with his father-in-law, he paid great attention to the brass-foundery bufinefs, and ftill remembers the pro