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Show 334 MONTE NUOVO FORMED A.1>. 1538. cone, but only a slight depression, hardly deserving the name of a crater, where heaps of black and red scorire lie scattered around. Until this eruption, Ischia is generally believed to have enjoyed an interval of rest for about seventeen centuries ; but Julius Obseqnens*, who flourished A.D. ~14, refers to some volcanic convulsion in the year 66~, after the building of Rome. (91 B.C.) As Pliny, who lived a century before Obsequens, does not enumerate this among other volcanic eruptions, the statement of the latter author is supposed to have been erroneous; but it would be more consistent, for reasons before stated, to disregarc;l the silence of Pliny, and to conclude that some subterranean commotion, probably of no great violence, happened at the period alluded to. 'l'o return to Vesuvius,-the next eruption occurred in 1806; between which era and 1681 there was only one other (in 1500), and that a slight one. It has been remarked, that throughout this period Etna was in a state of such unusual activity as to lend countenance to the idea that the great Sicilian volcano may sometimes serve as a channel of discharge to elastic fluids and lava that would otherwise rise to the vents in Campania. 'The great pause was also marked by a memorable event in the Phlegrrean Fields-the sudden formation of a new mountain in 1588, of which we have received authentic accounts from contemporary writers. Frequent earthquakes, fot' two years preceding, disturbed the neighbourhood of Puzzuo]i; but it was not until the ~7th and ~8th of September, 1588, that they became alarming, when not less than twenty shocks were experienced in twenty-four hours. At length, on the night of the ~9th, two hours after sunset, a gulph opened between the little town of Tripergola, which once existed on the site of the Monte N uovo, and the baths in its suburbs, which were much frequented. This watering place contained a hospital for those who resorted thither for the benefit of the thermal springs, and it appears that there were no fewer than three inns in the principal street. A large fissure approacl1ed the town with a tremendous noise, and began to discharge pumice-stones, blocks of unmelted lava and ashes mixed with water, and occasionally flames. The ashes fell in immense • Prodig. liblll., c. 114. MONTE NUOVO • • FORMED A.D. 153~. quantities, even at N l . 335 de ser t e d b y l.t s I. nhaabpit aens t;s whiTleh t h e nei. gh .b o ur.m g Puzzuoli was hundred yards and a .' e sea retired suddenly .{! t f ' portiOn f · b wr wo a terward~, when treatin of~~ Its ed was left dry. We shall proofs denved not only fg l arthquakcs, show by numer ( , F . . romt1est t f l ous see rontispiece) but f a eo t 1e Temple of S . I ' rom rna h erapts t Iat the whole coast fro M ny ot er physical phenom t h . ' rn onte Nu t b ena, a t at time upraised t th h . ovo o eyond Puzzuol' f l . o e etght of I, was o tIe Mediterranean d h . many feet above th b d 1 ' an as evet· e e e evated. On the 3rd of 0 b smce remained permanent! that the hill (fio- I N 11) cto er the eruption ceased y h o· , o. the , so t rown up in a day and '. h great mass of which w h a mo- t . as w ? ascended reported that th: i was accessible; and those on Its summit. (Fig.~' No. Ii.) ound a funnel-shaped crater 1 C Jtfonl• Nuovo, f orm•<l ;,. tl•• Day. . qf,Dauz, ScJllt11tbor 20111 1536 • one of Monte Nuevo ' . 3. Thermal spring, calied Baths of N 2. Brin: of cr~tcr of ditto. Th h . ero, or Stufc d.i Tritoli. b e etght of Monte N uovo h { t~e Italian mineralogist Pin' as;ecently been determined, ei;f:"~ feet above the level ~f t~h: ~ou~ h.undred •.nd forty ference. ousand f~et, or nearly a mile .~· alts bas~ lS. about h Accordmg to p· . h half, m circum-h'ulln dred and twenty-one EInmg,l ' t he f t depft h of th e crater I.s fout· I ' so that its botto . IS . eet rom the summit of h the sea. No lava fl:v~d o~:mmnthe~~en f~et above the levelt o~ Ji cav1ty ' bu t t he eJ. ected |