[A] This small cone, as it appeared on the 1st April, is described and
drawn in a Memoir of Professor von Rath, of the University of Bonn, on
"Vesuvius on the 1st and 17th of April, 1871."
[B] Eight young medical students perished beneath the lava, with others
unknown by name. They were all youths of good promise; their names will
be recorded on the marble monument to be erected near the Observatory.
They are: Girolamo Pausini, Antonio and Maurizio Fraggiacomo, Francesco
Binetti da Molfettu, Giuseppe Carbone da Bari, Francesco Spezzaferri da
Trani, and Giovanni Busco da Casamassima and Vitangelo Poli.
[C] If this enormous height of projection really means, that above the
brim of the crater, it involves an initial velocity of projection of
above 600 feet (British) per second.
Observations of the height of ascent of volcanic blocks are always
difficult and deceptive, and never free from error.--_Translator._
[D] Assuming these flashes to have emanated from somewhere within the
cloudy volume of steam and dust called "the head of the pine-tree," this
interval would indicate that the mean height of this cloudy volume
itself was not more than about four thousand feet above the top of the
cone; and, if so, that is not very far from the limit in height of
projection of the dust and lapilli.--_Translator._
[E] COTUNUITE, chloride of lead, in white, lustrous, acicular crystals,
of the trimetric system, easily scratched, Sp. gr., 5·238.
TENORITE, peroxide of copper, in thin, hexagonal plates or scales,
translucent when very thin, dark steel gray, of the cubic system; hard
and lustrous. Sp. gr. about 5·950.--_Translator._
[F] Earthquakes, though in distant regions, usually precede eruptions.
The Earthquake of Melfi preceded the great Eruption of Etna in 1852; the
Earthquake of Basilicata of December, 1857, terminated with the Eruption
of 1858, which filled the Fossa Grande with lava; the Earthquakes of
Calabria of 1867 and 1870 were the precursors of the Vesuvian
conflagrations of 1868, 1871, 1872. A Volcano, also, in the Island of
Java had a great eruption in the month of April, some days before the
last conflagration of Vesuvius, as I learnt from a letter addressed to
Signor Herzel, Swiss Consul at Palermo, communicated to me[7] by the
astronomer, Signor Cacciatore.--_Palmieri._
[G] I have made a large collection of sublimates, which I purpose
examining with the spectroscope, and I shall be able to place some at
the disposal of experimentalists who may desire to pursue investigations
of this kind.