down by cords, for resting the traveller's legs. The seat, which is made of bark and ropes, twisted together, is fastened to two poles, and carried like a sedan, with broad leathern straps.

During winter, the plain on the top of mount Cennis being always covered with snow, is crossed in sledges, drawn by a horse or mule. In some places, the descent is performed in chairs; but from mount Cennis to Laneburg, it is conducted in a most surprising manner. On the edge of the declivity is a house, where the traveller getting into a sledge with his guide, slides down with such rapidity, that he is carried about three miles in seven or eight minutes, the swiftness of the motion almost taking away his breath. The guide sits forward steering with a stick, and has on each side an iron chain, which he drops like an anchor, either to slacken or stop the course of the sledge.

In some of these mountains the river Arva runs for many miles between high, craggy, and inaccessible rocks, which seem as if split on purpose, to give its rapid waters a free passage. The astonishing echoes and continual sounds occasioned by its streams, the trampling of the horses and mules, and the hallooing of passengers, in these places are reverberated three, four, and even in some parts, six or seven times, with such amazing loudness, as fills the traveller unaccustomed to them with terror; and the firing of a gun or pistol, is here more dreadful than the loudest claps of thunder. The roads which are cut along the sides of the steep rocks, and are frequently not above five or six feet wide, afford, both above and below, the dreadful prospect of a steep precipice, with impending monstrous rocks that appear just ready to fall, which, joined to the above noises,

strikes the amazed beholder with horror. The great cataracts of that river are, in several places, more or less loud and terrible, according as the waters are more or less swelled by the melting snows, with which the tops of the mountains are covered. One in particular falls with great noise and violence from a prodigious high rock, above eleven hundred feet.--Wonders of Nature and Art:

67. Volcanoes.-Vesuvius.

AFTER the above account of the Alps, it would be needless to say any thing of the Apennines, another chain of lofty mountains which run through the whole length of Italy; and therefore we proceed to take a view of mount Vesuvius, one of the most famous and dreadful volcanoes in the world. This burning mountain is seven or eight miles to the eastward of Naples, and the terrible eruptions of fire, stones, and melted matter that have proceeded from its summit, have often threatened the destruction of that city and all the neighbouring country. About half the way to it from Naples the road is pleasant enough, running through several pretty villages along the coast after which we meet with dismal marks of this volcano's fury. The ascent to the top of the mountain is tedious and difficult, for every step a person takes he sinks into a kind of burnt earth, loose and crumbled as if it had been sifted, and mixed with calcined stones and cinders. Having travelled in this troublesome manner about two miles, we arrive at a naked plain, from several parts whereof issues a sulphureous smoke; and in the middle of it rises another hill, shaped like a sugar-loaf, of more difficult ascent than the

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former. At the summit of this hill is a vast mouth or cavity, about four hundred yards in diameter at the top, but shelving down on all sides like a funnel, from whence proceed a continual smoke, and sometimes those astonishing eruptions of flame, ashes, and burning matter, which fill the neighbouring inhabitants with consternation. Every time it darts forth its flames, and pours forth its liquid matter, the exterior form of the mountain, as well as its height, receives considerable alterations. In a small plain, resembling a half moon, situated between the mountain of cinders, and a semicircular theatre of steep rocks, two hundred feet high, M. de la Condamine viewed closely the breathing holes, lately opened in the sides of the mountain, through which, at the time of a late eruption, those torrents of inflamed matter had escaped, to which they give the name of lava, and with which all this valley is filled. This singular spectacle presents us, says he, with the appearance of metallic waves grown cold, and in a state of congelation. One may form a slight but very imperfect notion of it, by supposing to himself a sea of thick and tenacious matter, the waves of which were beginning to subside. This sea had its isles, which are solitary masses, resembling hollow spungy rocks, opening into arcades and grottos, fantastically formed, beneath which the burning liquid matter had opened itself magazines or reservoirs not unlike furnaces. These grottos, with their vaults, and pillars, all the pure work of nature, were loaded with scoria, suspended around them, in the form of stalactites, or irregular clusters of grapes of all sorts of colours and shades.

If we look into ancient history, we find dismal accounts of the devastations occasioned by

this volcano; but we need go no farther back than the last century, nor even so far, for instances of its raging with extraordinary fury. In the year 1694 there was a violent eruption, which continued great part of the month of April, and threw up ashes, stones, &c. with such force, that some of them reached Benevento, near thirty miles distant. A prodigious quantity of melted minerals was likewise thrown out of the mouth, and ran slowly down the sides of the mountain, insomuch that great numbers of men were employed to cut trenches and channels to receive it, and prevent its spreading over the plains below. At this time, when the wind was in the east, the houses and streets of Naples were covered with ashes.

In the latter end of July, in the year 1707, there happened another terrible eruption, attended with such a rumbling and bellowing of the mountain, as far exceeded the report of the largest artillery. Having thrown up clouds of ashes into the air for several days and nights, and a shower of stones that killed both men and cattle, it began to belch out a liquid torrent of bitumen, which resembled a gentle stream of fire, and cooling in its progress became as hard as flint at the bottom, but more porous and spongy on the surface. After this, frequent flashes of fire, like lightning, proceeded from its mouth, followed by loud claps of thunder; and on the second of August, at four in the afternoon, there was such a thick cloud of ashes hovering over Naples, that the darkness was equal to that at midnight. The next day, by the shifting of the wind, the ashes were driven another way; and the mountain having raged after this manner about fifteen days, the eruption entirely ceased.

To these accounts of Vesuvius we shall only add a few particulars relating to the great eruption in 1717, as they are given us by Mr. Edward Berkely, afterwards bishop of Clogher, in Ireland, who was then at Naples. On the 5th of June, he tells us, the mountain was observed to spue a little out of the crater, as he calls its mouth; and the same continued the day following. On the 7th, in the evening, it began a hideous bellowing, which continued till noon the next day, causing the windows and even the houses in Naples to shake. From that time it would vomit vast quantities of melted matter to the south, which streamed down the side of the mountain, like a pot boiling over. On the 10th it roared and groaned most dreadfully, of which one cannot form a juster idea, than by imagining a mixed sound, made up of the raging of a tempest, the murmur of a troubled sea, and the roaring of thunder and artillery confused all together. This induced our author, with three or four more in company, to visit the mountain; and they arrived at the burning river about midnight, when the roaring of the volcano was exceedingly loud and horrible. There was a mixture of colours in the cloud over the crater, a ruddy dismal light in the air over the fiery torrent, and ashes were continually showering upon their heads; all which circumstances, augmented by the horror and silence of the night, made a most uncommon and astonishing scene. Imagine, says he, a vast torrent of liquid fire rolling along the side of a mountain, and with incredible fury bearing down and consuming vines, olives, fig-trees, houses, and every thing that stood in its way. The largest stream seemed half a mile broad at least, and five miles long; and Mr. Berkeley walked so far up