File:Naples – Vesuvius seen in the distance (14803182433).jpg

Identifier: sanfranciscoshor00wils (find matches)
Title: San Francisco's horror of earthquake and fire ... to which is added graphic accounts of the eruptions of Vesuvius and many other volcanoes, explaining the causes of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, comp. from stories told by eye witnesses of these frightful scenes
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Wilson, James Russel. (from old catalog)
Subjects: San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, Calif., 1906 Volcanoes. (from old catalog)
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa., National publishing co
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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a degree as to exhibit at night the most beautiful fireworkimaginable. The eruption came to its climax from the 5th to the loth ofAugust, on the former of which days, after the ejection of anenormous volume of white clouds, piled like bales of the whitestcotton, in a mass exceeding four times the height and size of themountain itself; the lava began to overflow the rim of the crater,and stream in torrents down the steep slope of the cone. Thiswas continued till the Sth, when the great mass of the lava wouldseem to have been evacuated, and no longer repressing by itsweight the free discharge of the imprisoned gases, allowed whatremaiued to be ejected in fountains of fire, carried up to an ERLITIONS IX MANY PARTS OF THE WORLD. 29n immense lieiglit in die air. The description of one of tliese Imust give in the pictnresque and vivid words of Sir WilliamHamilton hiinself. About nine oclock, he says, on Sunday the 8th of August, there was a loud report, which shook the houses at Portici and
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NAPLES. SHOWING MOUNT VESUVIUS IN THE DISTANCE. its neighborhood to such a degree as to alarm the inhabitants an^ldrive them out into the streets. )\Iany windows were broken, andas I have since seen, walls cracked by the concussion of the airfrom that explosion. In one instant a fountain of liquid trans-parent fire began to rise, and gradually increasing, arrived at soamazing a height as to strike eveiy one who beheld it with themost awful astonishment. I shall scarce!v be credited when I 294 ERUPTIONS IN MANY PARTS OF THE WORLD. assure you that, to the best of my judgment, the height of thisstupendous column of fire could not be less than three times thatof Vesuvius itself; which, you kuow, rises perpendicularly near3,700 feet above the level of the sea. (The height of my ownmeasurement in 1824 is 3,920 feet.) Puffs of smoke, as black as can possibly be imagined,suceeded one another hastily, and accompanied the red-hot,transparent, and liquid lava, interrupting its splendid brightnes

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