A melancholy man generally passes with the world for a very unhappy being; but could they who are disposed to form this barsh decision, enter into bis views, partake of his pleasures, catch that eathusiasm which animates, or that peace which possexses its soul; could they view, with his eyes, the afairs upon which they are so earnestly engaged; were they able to relish that happiness which is unaccompanied by ostentation; could they, in short, be content to live in peaceful retirement from the bastle of the world, or dispassionate contempt of its Tiles; they would perhaps feel disposed to amend their verdict, and pronounce the melancholy man Que of the happiest of the human race. “ Unnoticed, and almost unknown," at which it had not yet quenched its thirst, and of When turning from the grave of a departed friend, LIVES OF ANIMALS. several of the animal creation. The partridge, peacock, swine, and turtle dove, TO THE Editor. calculation" of the injury and waste occasioned by SIR,-In your last paper appeared an " Alarming Rooks. The sum total is certainly exaggerated, although your friend affects to take the lowest data; and I doubt not you will see the mischief that might ensue were his opinions generally received; fortunately they are not. The farmer knows, too, (as well as the naturalist) the overpay all the destruction they are ever guilty of comservices these useful bipeds render; services which At the funeral of one, who, whilst living, hadmitting; and which the following extract may serve to been beheld with that mixture of reverence and illustrate: "These insects (hedge-chafers) appear in hot weather in formidable numbers, disrobing the fields and trees of their verdure, blossoms, and fruit; spreading desolation and destruction wherever they go. They appeared in great numbers in Ireland, during a hot summer, and committed great ravages. In the year 1747 whole folk. The decrease of Rookeries in that county was meadows and corn-fields were destroyed by them in Sufthought to be the occasion of it. The many rookeries with us, is, in some measure, the reason why we have so few of these destructive insects."-Wallis's Northum Every friend, then, of agriculture and of humanity must feel concerned in the preservation of these birds; and looking upon you, Mr. Editor, as such, I beg the insertion of this "defence of the Rook."-Yours, &c. He who views his fellow-men through the distorted ➡hen overwhehned with misfortune, or oppressed "To each his sufferings, are all men The tender, for another's pain; which the sculptor, or the escutcheons with which PYRUS. [Our correspondent's attention is directed to the Natu.alist's Diary in this number of the Kaleidoscope, where he will find something on the same subject.] The Naturalist's Diary, For MARCH, 1821. The pomp and ceremony of a great funeral have to me always had a je ne sais pas quoi very forbidding; how great the contrast between the nodding pluies' which, in idle state, wave over the bier of the rich, and the simple, uuostentatious, yet affecting ceremonial at the obsequies of the poor! The oue is followed to the grave by many, who, if they really lament his luss, are so awed by fashion, as to be Borne o'er the smiling plain, on soaring wings, ashamed of giving utterance to their very natural The early lark in rapturous warblings sings; feelings; the other is surrounded by real mourners, Her joyful notes the lab'ring peasant cheer, whose grief is, in general, at once simple and affect-Who turns, well pleased, to Heav'n, his list'ning ear; Then bending, ploughs in dark brown waves the ground, ing. The one lics enshrined in a leaden coffin, or a marble monument, and "affliction's semblance bend-With measured step the sower treads the plain, While crows and magpies hov'ring fly around. ing o'er his tomb," supplies the place of "affliction's And lib'ral show'rs around the golden grain. self," who is seldom "secn to weep" amidst such gorgeous pageantry; the other lies under a mound of earth, upon which the grass or wild flower grows; and even should it not be decked by the hand of some child or affectionate friend with the blushing rose, or the lilies, is far more beautiful than "Solomon in all his glory Thus, the " grave, dread thing!" seems stripped of balf its horrors, whilst nothing can be more cheerless (disgusting, I had almost a d) than the vault in which the great men, and the mighty men" of the earth are deposited. There is something in the mound of green earth, clothed with flowers and shrubs, which engages the mind of the most thoughtless; and many a mad schoolboy, who, for a moment's sport, would not hesitate to rob a weeping cupid of his wings, or even of his head, would perhaps approach with reverence the flower that blossomed over the unassuming grave of a humble peasant! B. Liverpool, February, 1821. The superabundant moisture of the earth being dried up, the process of vegetation isgradually brought on: those trees which, in the last month, were budding, now begin to put forth their leaves; and the various appearances of nature announce the approach of SPRING. Yet the appearance of this delightful season is often retarded by cold and keen winds, and blowing weather.' March, through the hours of promise, with bright ray In late seasons the tender leaves of the forest trees are still fast wrapped up in the hard cases of their buds, and require some warmth and rain to give them vigour to unfold themselves. Still, however, the forest is not destitute of interest. The occasio: al . note of the blackbird gives a presage of approach- Those birds which have passed the winter in contrary to all military laws, to destroy an unresisting ing spring, and enlivens the solitude. And, as if to England now take their departure for more north-enemy. I have since arranged that A and B, having remind us of the agreeable colours of the absent erly regions. The fieldfares travel to Russia, Swe- the power to move their pieces in any direction foliage, the common polypody continues to orna- den, and Norway, and even as far as Siberia. They without being annoyed by C, shall not have the ment the tops of old pollard hornbeams, where, in do not arrive in France until December, when they the collection of moisture and rotten leaves formed assemble in large flocks of two or three thousand. Power of taking C's insetive men. I fancy that the in the hollows, it finds ample means of growth. In- The redwing, which frequents the same places, principle is more just, and the game certainly more indeed this plant, from the singular arrangement of its eats the same food, and is very similar in manners teresting, by the adoption of the latter mode. The fruit in dots along the under surface of the leaf, is into the fieldfare, also takes leave of this country for double game is considerably more complicated than teresting to the young botanist. So, indeed, is the the season. Soon after, the woodcock wings its the single. When four persons accustomed to play st common nut when in full bloom. Its pendant catkin aërial voyage to the country bordering on the Bal- chess form the party, the interest it excites is beyond or amentum, containing the farina, is very conspi- tic. Some other birds, as the crane and stork, forcuous, throwing out its dust on being agitated; but merly natives of this island, bave quitted it entirely description, I have described the double game the fruit bearing flower is not so obvious, and will since our cultivation and population have so rapidly many of my friends, and about eighteen months p repay the trouble of minutely examining the neigh-increased. particularised it to a manufacturer of chess-boards bouring buds, among which will be found some tipt A curious circumstance in the migration of birds, Oxford-street. Previous to the date I have mentioned, with several crimson laments; these buds are the is their equal or this dispersion over a large tract of I never heard or read of the double game of chess; future nuts, country, so that each spot, generally speaking, has if, therefore, such a game had been introduced, it wu some of all or many sorts. For instance, all the linnets in England are not in one place, all the gold-perfectly unknown to me; and I have mentioned the finches in another, all the bullfinches in another, and circumstance to many eminent chess-players, who all, so with the sparrows, tom-tits, chaffinches, larks, without a single exception, avowed their perfectige &c. &c. but there is a general mixture, subject to rance of any such game.—Bath Chronicle. variations, in almost all places. The melody of birds now gradually swells upon the ear. The throstle, second only to the nightingale in song, charms us with the sweetness of its lays. The linnet and the goldfinch join the general concert in this month, and the goldencrowned wreu begins its song. The lark also must not be forgotten. The melody of this little creature continues during the whole of the summer. It is chiefly, however, in the morning and evening that its strains are heard; and as it chaunts its mellow notes on the wing, it is the peculiar favourite of every person who has taste to relish the beauties of nature at the most tranquil seasons of the day, particularly at dawn. THE MORNING LARK. Feathered lyric, warbling high, In this month the young naturalist will not forget to observe the spawn of the frog, which is now found on the surface of the ponds in great abundance, in the form of jelly. This is constituted of a mass of globules, each enveloping a black egg, of the appearance and size of a rape-seed. The smelt begins to ascend rivers to spawn, when they are taken in great abundance. On the 26th the vernal equinox takes place, and River and rivulet are freed from ice Miscellanies. [See Notice to Correspondents.] Goethe. THE DOUBLE GAME OF CHESS. a board constructed, capable of having twelve squares Quick at Work, quick at Meat.-The following told has been seldom, if ever, equaled. Thomas Ge stance of hard labour and rapid workmanship we and Thomas Sutton, in the employ of Mr. J. Me of Baston, near Market Deeping, made in twenty days, out of old iron, twelve hundred and thirty shoes, being nearly fifty-two each per day. Webe it has hitherto been considered by the trade as an unmatchable instance of rapid workmanship to forty-eight of the same articles from old iron in and that, but occasionally. Mr. Measures, villag we presume, to muzzle the ox that treadeth out corn,' regaled his workmen, after the completion of t task, with two plumb-puddings, a leg of mutton, a bucket full of ale, when they proved themselves as pert at trencher-work as they had previously been at anvil, by devouring the whole, with the exceptiona very small piece of the mutton. The mutton and p dings weighed altogether 161b. In the progress of forging, they burnt 32 strikes of coals; and, in th days, drank 350 pints of ale, given them by Mr. Meas who also paid them £5. 148. for their labour.-Drakent Stamford News. A The following strange, but well-attested ocentres which actually took place a few days since, our readers of Him who took the Doctor's bill, In this month, rooks build and repair their nests. That these birds are not so detrimental to the farmer as is generally imagined, has, we think, been satisfactorily proved. Of the common carrion crow we cannot speak so favourably: in this month, or later in some seasons, this bird, at other times wary and And swallow'd it, instead o' th' pill. shy, becomes uncommonly bold and fearless, and few birds are more injurious to the countryman "A man-servant, in the employ of the Rev. Dr. than he is. Should a kite or hawk appear near the MER, of Yarcombe, near Chard, being taken farm-yard, all its inhabitants scream out au alarm, pared for the man a bolus from the family medical attendant of the family was sent for and some preparation for safety is taken, or the chest, and having wrapped up in paper the wuisance is acared away; but the crow is in some weights used in weighing out the proper propo manner domesticated amongst us, and he becomes the drugs, left them on the table, and near to then t proportionally more daring and insidious: young poultry are destroyed in numbers by them; ducks, on each side; a space in each corner adequate to four bolus, which he desired one of the females of the boose carry to the man-servant, with instructions to take it in turkeys, and other out-laying birds, frequently lose squares being left undivided, left 128 squares, or mediately in treacle. Some hours afterwards, his mas nearly all their eggs by this bird. In one ungenial double the number of squares which are on the com- came to inquire about the patient, and found him season in the month of May, a Gloucestershire cor- mon chess-board. A double set of men are necessary: tributed to the strange kind of medicine the Doctor fering under very uneasy symptoms, which the ma respondent informs us, he had nearly all his young I employ four colours, viz. red, white, black, and green; ordered for him, and which he said he should neve broud of pigeons (when they followed the old ones. into the field) successively killed by them; they the position of the players is not in the opposition as have got through with, had he not cut it into smal even chased the old ones, striking them with their at whist, but they are placed as allied forces, side by pieces; but, he thanked GOD, that, though it wa rather rough and sharpish, he had got it all down.' Th strong beaks on the back of their necks, and thus side; necessarily no communication can take place account puzzled his master exceedingly, who, howe easily brought them to the ground; and to such an with each other as to their respective intentions. Sup- soon discovered that the man had actually swallowed a extent was this havock carried, that, in order to save posing A and B as antagonists to C and D; it is neces- treacle a complete set of brass grain weights, instead the dove cot, it was necessary to have all these vo- sary for both C and D to be checkmated before A and the bolus, which was found lying harmlessly on the table in his master's room. Proper remedies were In this month, trouts begin to rise; blood-worms B are conquerors; if C be checkmated, D may subse-mediately adopted, for dislodging this uncommon de appear in the water; black ants are observed; the quently relieve the checkmate, and then C returns to from the man's stomach, who subsequently recovers blackbird and the turkey lay; and house pigeons sit; action. For the first year I amused myself with this from his illness." the greenfinch sings; the bat is seen flitting about; game; presuming myself to be the inventor I prescribed and the viper uncoils itself from its winter sleep. certain laws; supposing C to be checkmated, conseThe wheatear, or English ortolan, again pays its quently incapable of moving, yet either A or B had the annual visit, leaving England, in September. They privilege of taking such of the pieces of C as might be are found in great numbers about East Bourne, in Sussex, more than eighteen hundred dozen being should be liberated, he would return to the action with en prise, in order that if, in the progress of the game C aqnually taken in this neighbourhood. They are usually sixpence per dozen, a diminished force. I have since considered this as children their parents ever had. racious birds shot. about three miles from Bingley, consisting of two Longevity. There is a venerable family now living thers and a sister, whose united ages amount to years; one brother being upwards of 95 years of e faculties, and it is remarkable that they are al the other upwards of 89, and the sister above 86. They are all in tolerable health and enjoy the use of Valiant, and determined in attack, as well as defence. TO THE EDITOR. SIR, Although your columns are chiefly occupied The following letter against dueling, which was munity is extended; they would, therefore, Written by the late Emperor of Germany, Joseph the Second, to one of his Generals, has just found its way institute laws or rules whereby those who the world in a work at Leipsic, entitled a Collection disbelieve in God or disregard His will, by a display of mental exertion and ingenuity, extreme of unpublished Letters of Joseph 11: "General-I desire you to arrest Count K. and might be constrained to keep it for the physical agility and expertness is assuredly worthy of Captain W. immediately. The Count is of an imthe attention of the studious during their moments of arous character, proud of his birth, and full of false general benefit: thus, the fear of im-relaxation. The feats of Dubois and his disciples have ideas of honour. Captain W. who is an old soldier, mediate punishment would impress a re- their admirers among the curious and philosophie, as thinks of settling every thing by the sword or pistol. exhibiting the facility of producing ocular deception, He has done wrong, to accept a challenge from the pugnance in the thief or the murderer, by a nimbleness of movement which we do not meet young Count I will not suffer the practice of dueling my army and I despise the arguments of those to perform that which the community has with in the ordinary exertions of life. But this species of deception has been fully equaled by the Chinese ho seek to justify it. I have a high esteem for officers determined should involve his own destruc- and Indian Jugglers, whose general performances may! who expose themselves courageously to the enemy, rank in a higher scale than those of mere slight-ofad who on all occasions show themselves intrepid, tion; and although he does not think it hand, as they consist of an astonishing command over The indifference with which they face death is honour. Wrong to supply his own wants from the animate objects the maintaining of equilibriums poising and tossing bodies on the point of a stick, and able to themselves and useful to their country; but abundance of his neighbours, or gratify maintaining various evolutions at one time, with balls, there are men ready to sacrifice every thing to a spirit of his hatred by destroying the object of it; quickness of vision, and nimbleness of action combined, or knives, &c. Here we have, without any deception, revenge and hatred. I despise them: such men, in my opinion, are worse than Roman gladiators. Let a yet he is compelled to think so, otherwise to produce a pleasing and extraordinary effect. council of war be summoned to try these two officers, I last night paid a second visit to the Chinese Juggler's with all the impartiality which I demand from every his own destruction follows. Thus the now here; and can in no other way account for their adges and let the most culpable of the two, be made natural principle of self-preservation teaches astonishing faculty of action, than by supposing they example, by the rigour of the law. I am resolved have devoted a life of continued practice and exertion at this barbarous custom, which is worthy of the age him, that it is right to refrain from theft to its acquirement. The manoeuvres with the balls at Tamerlane and Bajazet, and which is so often fatal and murder; for surely every man thinks who sat next me, nearly fell from her seat on starting the extremities of a cord were highly amusing: a lady, the peace of families, shall be punished and sup sed, though it should cost me half my officers. that right which conduces to his personal back from one of them, which the performer darted to here will be still left men, who can unite bravery within an mch of her nose; and several in the back' ith the duties of faithful subjects. I wish for none safety, and vice versa. seats were seen occasionally rushing back, as one of the ho do not respect the laws of the country." balls, in the middle of their various evolutions, flew swiftly but harmlessly at their heads, to the infinite amusement of the spectators. The thong, or brazen sand graceful ways, and gave us a lively iden of the instrument of warfare, was expertly twirled in a thou neatness with which we might be transfixed, if engaged in the field with a host of such nimble warriors. Correspondence. TO THE EDITOR. Sir,-I was led to the consideration of the following ubject by arguing with a friend: whether it is more greable with Scripture and reason to believe the Hea i will be saved or they will not? As much of the gument rests on the intuitiveness of the Moral Sense, send you my thoughts thereon, in the hope that some your more able correspondents will either confirm my timents on that point, or show cause why I should bange them. If you approve of this, I shall feel obliged - vy jour inserting them in the Kaleidoscope. I should be glad if any of your readers could inform the whether juggling constitutes the principal national amusement of China. If such feats be common there, it is a proof of ingenuity and expertness, which, if apthat little-known country higher than she has hitherto plied to the more important purposes of life, would raise risen in the scale of national importance. Yours, &c. J. B. Now, if the community has not established laws for the prevention of those crimes, but suffered them with impunity, the thief or murderer would not have known that it was right to abstain from those acts. By the laws of Sparta, we know that the theft was allowed, and not unfrequently rewarded: and there are communities who allow, nay, even deem it praiseworthy for the child to murder his aged parent. Numerous other instances might be adduced of vice (in our sense of that word) being considered as virtue. How then our sense of right and wrong can be intuitive, I You will, doubtless, have little reckoned on the pleacannot think, when there are millions of sure of hearing so soon from me again; but, as the little our fellow-creatures who believe what we what Irishman, whether to serve friend or foe, ever yet fat man in the play says, “honour pricks me on:" and call virtuous and right to be vicious and refused to obey the mandates of her most capricious deiwrong. I therefore think, that our con- tyship? Yesterday, as the family were assembled tosciousness of right and wrong is not in-gether, enjoying what Father Murphy poetically denominated a "noon day refection," and, in the midst of The true import of the "Moral Sense" tuitive, but the offspring of example and When we contemplate the actions of a ommunity of which we are members, we pprove of those actions, as the sense of e community has heretofore censured or pplauded them: for instance, part of the evealed will of God being, "Thou shalt ot steal:Thou shalt do no murder." We ill suppose that this is made known as he will of God to a community, and they bey it in reverence to God; and for their uture good, that they perceive the more strictly these commands are kept, the more the peace and prosperity of the com ᎢᎾ ᎢᎻᎬ ᎬᎠᎥᎢᎾᎡ, To The EDITOR. a learned controversy, between that erudite divine and myself, on the merits of the ham pie, my groom of the chambers brought me your last week's Kaleidoscope, franked by my cousin, the Honourable Broderick O'Botherum, M. P.; and you may guess with what mixed feelings of wonder and curiosity 1 perused the note of one Lorenzo, professing to have discovered the treasure, whose untimely loss has drowned the literary world in tears, and actually vouching for its appearance on the subsequent Monday. I never was, before (to use the idiom of the profanum vulgus) so struck of a beap; the piece of batterpudding, which I was conveying to my masticating organ, fell from my fork on the floor, much to the detriment of Miss Deborah's worked carpet, and the satisfaction of honest Pompey, who had been watching the delicious morsel with a sensitive squint peculiar to that accomplished quadruped; and, altogether, my outward man gave such evident symptoms of nervous agitation, that, were it not for the balmy effects of a glass of cherry-brandy, which that beautiful maid, t Miss Murphinä, poured out, and applied to my lips 1 and an officer in his Majesty's service. To Correspondents. EDITORIAL APOLOGY.-Common prudence and com- with her own fair hands, I am morally certain I should | Dismal gives me hopes of being able to draw a trigger in Your friend, DERMOT O'GOSTER. P. S.-I am happy to inform you that my fingers are fast hastening to a state of convalescence; and Doctor Peter used to call whiskey "Irish wine :" that accomplished Barbarian imported and drank large quantities of it; chiefly, they say, to give him nerve to sustain the long curtain-lectures of that notable virago his wife. Sir Daniel, after having swallowed thirty-six tumblers, fell a sacrifice (like Hannibal and the ring) to a glass of cold water he had taken immediately after. The classical plain of Donnybrook received his remains.-D.O'G. DOUBLE GAME OF CHESS.-At the request of a cor- The few spare leaves from the Edinburgh Magazine The article suggested by A MANCHESTER READER, ORTHOGRAPHICAL INNOVATIONS.-The letter of G. If A YOUNG BACHELOR, who has addressed some LITHOGRAPHIC MAP. Our readers may recollect, A SAXON has not been forgotten. We shall institute a search for the object of R. P.'s in quiry. The piece called "The Brothers' Steps," shall not be delayed long. The lines entitled The Ringlet" are interesting, shall have a place in the next Kaleidoscope. NAUTICUS LEODIENSIS, whose “Pleasures Voyage to India" appeared in a late Kaleido, must not conclude that we have overlooked the other pieces, with which we were favoured at the same time, particularly the lines" Ad Amicos;" "The Pleasures and the Pains of the Hookah." PUNNING.-The whimsical specimen from Swift, commended some time since by a correspondent, stall probably appear in our next. Printed, published, and sold by E. SMITH and Co. Warrington, Mr. Harrison. Lancaster Mr. Bentham. Stoke, Mr. Tomkinson Hanley, Mr. Allbut. Wigan, Messrs. Lyon. Ormskirk, Mr. Garside Blackburn, Mr. Rogert Northwich, Mr. Kent, No. 38.-NEW SERIES. The Gleaner. OR, Literary and Scientific Mirror. “I am but a gatherer and disposer of other men's WOTTON. performed. The first time I was up, ap- just above the source of the stream pearances not being very menacing, we ven- there were huge swellings in the mountured to approach the craters. We found tain, which one could see through the three of them, and all at work. One ex-crevices, were full of burning matter, ready hibited nothing but an immense gulph of to burst through the feeble incrustation smoke, whirled round in vast volumes, by that held it together. I mounted the fiery a wind that came from below. Another, stream and was carried down by it a consiat some distance, drove into the air frequent derable distance!! Here I am sure you showers of red-hot stones and cinders. will think that I am making use of a traveler's RIGINAL LETTER ADDRESSED TO A GEN- From the third, issued by fits, a fearful privilege; it is nevertheless a fact: but you THE TRAVELLER. ITALY. TLEMAN IN LIVERPOOL, BY HIS FRIEND noise, that made one start, involuntarily, And a little below, a must know, that these streams of lava collect in their course a coating of large cinders, so that at some distance from the head, person without much risk may get upon them, although the mass underneath is as hot as had navigated a river of fire! However, my vanity cost me a good singeing, and the strong fumes of sulphur brought on a violent vomiting. A few days back, I went up and had the pleasure to witness the formations of a new crater. It vomited forth vast quantities of black out into the air like an immense sheet, and then was rent asunder with a tremendous crash, into a thousand pieces. An old crater, that towered above it, was so in But after all, perhaps nothing has made a greater im "As a place of residence, I cannot say like Naples better than Genoa, which, of all the towns I ever saw, is the one that pleases me the most; and if the inhabitants were only a little more sociable with strangers, it would perhaps be the place of all athers where I should like most to pass my in many places, had the appearance of hav-smoke and lava, which seemed immediately to spread days. Indeed, as it is, I always think of it ing been rent asunder by the convulsions with the same sort of regret that a schoolboy of the mountain. does of his bome, the first time he quits stream of lava, bursting from a chasm of boisterous as to forbid all approach. It launched out, it. Naples, on the contrary, is a very its own making, swept along the side of the quick succession, immense masses of red-hot rock, ugly town, and for noise, bustle, and con-mountain, like a river. This was a most which flew to a vast height into the air. The descent usion, certainly beats all others. How-wonderful object; and, being favoured by of these, as you may suppose, was a matter of no small anxiety to myself and companion, who were sitting ever, there is a rich compensation for all this the wind, we were enabled, notwithstand-down in full view of it, refreshing ourselves with in the surrounding country, which is full ing the heat, to approach so near to it as bunch of grapes, a crust of bread, and a bottle of exof beauty and wonders of all sorts. Mount to get on our sticks some of the burning cellent wine, which is called here, the "Tears of Christ.” Vesuvius alone is sufficient to repay amply matter, on which we made several impres-pression on me than the general aspect of the mountain, the curiosity of any traveler, however far sions with coins. The lava (which was per-every yard of which exhibits frightful traces of fire and he may have come to see it. It is one of fectly red hot) fell perpendicularly from a convulsion. It seems a spot singled out for the venthose very few objects which surpass the height of several feet, presenting a com-geance of Heaven, and one could imagine the horrid picture the imagination had previously plete cascade of fire. It then entered, for steeps on the back part of it, and the black valleys formed of it. I have gone up it several a short distance, a subterraneous passage, times; but always with fresh delight and and we could see it through the clefts above, astonishment: one never sees it twice the winding along its fearful course under same. The base of it is very extensive, and ground, But, on another occasion, I saw the ascent gentle, until you get to what is all this to more advantage by night, when called the cone, which takes one from forty the discharge of lava was much greater. to fifty minutes to mount, although four or But the awfulness of the scene is not to be five minutes are sufficient to descend it. described. As the lava issued in too great This will give you some idea of its steep- an abundance for the size of the vent, ness. The top of this cone is an extensive, it occasionally discharged with great vio. but very uneven and broken plain, on which lence, sending fiery flakes of matter through the chief operations of the mountain are the air, to our no small terror; and large and populous town, which stood on the sea coast, formed by rocks rent asunder, to be the haunt of de at mons; and the gaiety of the surrounding plains and mountains displaying perhaps the finest scenery in the world, only gives additional force to these ideas. I never returned from visiting this strange mountain without feeling a singular oppression of mind. It has different times (as you may perhaps have ready done great damage to the surrounding country. Some twenty thirty years ago, a stream of fire issued from it about 500 yards wide, overran a small town in its course, and advanced some distance into the sea. The town, how ever, is still inhabited, and the old houses remain yet, with the top story only peeping above ground, the lower ones being filled up with the flood of Lava. The fate of ancient Herculaneum was much worse. This was a or |