attended the explosion, which formed the new mountain, published a few
months after the event. As I think them very curious, and greatly to my
purpose, and as they are rare, I will give you a literal translation of
such extracts as relate to the formation of the Monte Nuovo. They are
bound in one volume[37].
The title of the first is, _Dell Incendio di Pozzuolo, Marco Antonio
delli Falconi all Illustrissima Signiora Marchesa della Padula nel
MDXXXVIII_.
At the head of the second is, _Ragionamento del Terremoto, del Nuovo
Monte, del Aprimento di Terra in Pozzuolo nell' Anno 1538, e della
significatione d'essi. Per Piero Giacomo da Toledo_; and at the end of
the book, _Stampata in Nap. per Giovanni Sulztbach Alemano, a 22di
Genaro 1539, con gratia, e privilegio_.
"First then (says Marco Antonio delli Falconi), will I relate simply and
exactly the operations of nature, of which I was either myself an
eye-witness, or as they were related to me by those who had been
witnesses of them. It is now two years that there have been frequent
earthquakes at Pozzuolo, at Naples, and the neighbouring parts; on the
day and in the night before the appearance of this eruption, above
twenty shocks great and small were felt at the abovementioned places.
The eruption made its appearance the 29th of September 1538, the feast
of St. Michael the angel; it was on a Sunday, about an hour in the
night; and, as I have been informed, they began to see on that spot,
between the hot baths or sweating rooms, and Trepergule, flames of fire,
which first made their appearance at the baths, then extended towards
Trepergule, and fixing in the little valley that lies between the Monte
Barbaro and the hillock called del Pericolo (which was the road to the
lake of Avernus and the baths), in a short time the fire increased to
such a degree, that it burst open the earth in this place, and threw up
so great a quantity of ashes and pumice stones mixed with water, as
covered the whole country; and in Naples a shower of these ashes and
water fell a great part of the night. The next morning, which was
Monday, and the last of the month, the poor inhabitants of Pozzuolo,
struck with so horrible a sight, quitted their habitations, covered with
that muddy and black shower, which continued in that country the whole
day, flying death, but with faces painted with its colours; some with
their children in their arms, some with sacks full of their goods;
others leading an ass, loaded with their frightened family, towards
Naples; others carrying quantities of birds of various sorts, that had
fallen dead at the time the eruption began; others again with fish which
they had found, and were to be met with in plenty upon the shore, the
sea having been at that time considerably dried up. Don Pedro di Toledo,
Viceroy of the kingdom, with many gentlemen, went to see so wonderful
an appearance; I also, having met with the most honourable and
incomparable gentleman, Signior Fabritio Moramaldo, on the road, went
and saw the eruption and the many wonderful effects of it. The sea
towards Baia had retired a considerable way; though, from the quantity
of ashes and broken pumice stones thrown up by the eruption, it appeared
almost totally dry. I saw likewise two springs in those
lately-discovered ruins, one before the house that was the Queen's, of
hot and salt water; the other of fresh and cold water, on the shore,
about 250 paces nearer to the eruption: some say, that, still nearer to
the spot where the eruption happened, a stream of fresh water issued
forth like a little river. Turning towards the place of the eruption,
you saw mountains of smoak, part of which was very black and part very
white, rise up to a great height; and in the midst of the smoak, at
times, deep-coloured flames burst forth with huge stones and ashes, and
you heard a noise like the discharge of a number of great artillery. It
appeared to me as if Typheus and Enceladus from Ischia and Etna with
innumerable giants, or those from the Campi Phlegrei (which, according
to the opinions of some, were situated in this neighbourhood), were come
to wage war again with Jupiter. The natural historians may perhaps
reasonably say, that the wise poets meant no more by giants, than
exhalations, shut up in the bowels of the earth, which, not finding a
free passage, open one by their own force and impulse, and form
mountains, as those which occasioned this eruption have been seen to do;
and methought I saw those torrents of burning smoak that Pindar
describes in an eruption of Etna, now called Mon Gibello, in Sicily; in
imitation of which, as some say, Virgil wrote these lines:
"Ipse sed horrificis juxta tonat AEtna ruinis, &c.
"After the stones and ashes with clouds of thick smoak had been sent up,
by the impulse of the fire and windy exhalation (as you see in a great
cauldron that boils), into the middle region of the air, overcome by
their own natural weight, when from distance the strength they had
received from impulse was spent, rejected likewise by the cold and
unfriendly region, you saw them fall thick, and, by degrees, the
condensed smoak clear away, raining ashes with water and stones of
different sizes, according to the distance from the place: then, by
degrees, with the same noise and smoak, it threw out stones and ashes
again, and so on by fits. This continued two days and nights, when the
smoak and force of the fire began to abate. The fourth day, which was
Thursday, at 22 o'clock, there was so great an eruption, that, as I was
in the gulph of Puzzole, coming from Ischia, and not far from Misenum, I
saw, in a short time, many columns of smoak shoot up, with the most
terrible noise I ever heard, and, bending over the sea, came near our
boat, which was four miles or more from the place of their birth; and
the quantity of ashes, stones, and smoak, seemed as if they would cover
the whole earth and sea. Stones, great and small, and ashes more or
less, according to the impulse of the fire and exhalations, began to
fall, so that a great part of this country was covered with ashes; and
many, that have seen it, say, they reached the vale of Diana, and some
parts of Calabria, which are more than 150 miles from Pozzuolo. The
Friday and Saturday nothing but a little smoak appeared; so that many,
taking courage, went upon the spot, and say, that with the stones and
ashes thrown up, a mountain has been formed in that valley, not less
than three miles in circumference, and almost as high as the Monte
Barbaro, which is near it, covering the Canettaria, the castle of
Trepergule, all those buildings and the greatest part of the baths that
were about them; extending South towards the sea, North as far as the
lake of Avernus, West to the Sudatory, and joining East to the foot of
the Monte Barbaro; so that this place has changed its form and face in
such a manner as not to be known again: a thing almost incredible, to
those who have not seen it, that in so short a time so considerable a
mountain could have been formed. On its summit there is a mouth in the
form of a cup, which may be a quarter of a mile in circumference, though
some say it is as large as our market-place at Naples, from which there
issues a constant smoak; and though I have seen it only at a distance,
it appears very great. The Sunday following, which was the 6th of
October, many people going to see this phaenomenon, and some having
ascended half the mountain, others more, about 22 o'clock there happened
so sudden and horrid an eruption, with so great a smoak, that many of
these people were stifled, some of which could never be found. I have
been told, that the number of the dead or lost amounted to twenty-four.
From that time to this, nothing remarkable happened; it seems as if the
eruption returned periodically, like the ague or gout. I believe
henceforward it will not have such force, though the eruption of the
Sunday was accompanied with showers of ashes and water, which fell at
Naples, and were seen to extend as far as the mountain of Somma, called
Vesuvius by the ancients; and, as I have often remarked, the clouds of
smoak proceeding from the eruption moved in a direct line towards that
mountain, as if these places had a correspondence and connection one
with the other. In the night, many beams and columns of fire were seen
to proceed from this eruption, and some like flashes of lightning[38].
We have then, many circumstances for our observation, the earthquakes,
the eruption, the drying up of the sea, the quantity of dead fish and
birds, the birth of springs, the shower of ashes with water and without
water, the innumerable trees in that whole country, as far as the Grotto
of Lucullus, torn from their roots, thrown down, and covered with ashes,
that it gave one pain to see them: and as all these effects were
produced by the same cause that produces earthquakes; let us first
enquire how earthquakes are produced, and from thence we may easily
comprehend the cause of the abovementioned events." Then follows a
dissertation on earthquakes, and some curious conjectures relative to
the phaenomena which attended this eruption, clearly and well expressed,
considering, as the author himself apologizes, that at that time the
Italian language had been little employed on such subjects.
The account of the formation of the Monte Nuovo, by Pietro Giacomo di
Toledo, is given in a dialogue between the feigned personages of
Peregrino and Svessano; the former of which says, "It is now two years
that this province of Campagna has been afflicted with earthquakes, the
country about Pozzuolo much more so than any other parts; but the 27th
and the 28th of the month of September last, the earthquakes did not
cease day or night, in the abovementioned city of Pozzuolo; that plain,
which lies between the lake of Averno, the Monte Barbaro, and the sea,
was raised a little, and many cracks were made in it, from some of which
issued water; and at the same time the sea, which was very near the
plain, dried up about two hundred paces, so that the fish were left on
the sand, a prey to the inhabitants of Pozzuolo. At last, on the 29th of
the said month, about two hours in the night, the earth opened near the
lake, and discovered a horrid mouth, from which were vomited furiously,
smoak, fire, stones, and mud composed of ashes; making, at the time of
its opening, a noise like very loud thunder: the fire, that issued from
this mouth, went towards the walls of the unfortunate city; the smoak
was partly black and partly white; the black was darker than darkness
itself, and the white was like the whitest cotton: these smoaks, rising
in the air, seemed as if they would touch the vault of heaven; the
stones that followed were, by the devouring flames, converted to pumice,
the size of which (of some I say) were much larger than an ox. The
stones went about as high as a cross-bow can carry, and then fell down,
sometimes on the edge, and sometimes into the mouth itself. It is very
true that many of them in going up could not be seen, on account of the
dark smoak; but, when they returned from the smoaky heat, they shewed
plainly where they had been, by their strong smell of fetid sulphur,
just like stones that have been thrown out of a mortar, and have passed
through the smoak of inflamed gunpowder. The mud was of the colour of
ashes, and at first very liquid, then by degrees less so; and in such
quantities, that in less than twelve hours, with the help of the
abovementioned stones, a mountain was raised of a thousand paces in
height. Not only Pozzuolo and the neighbouring country was full of this
mud, but the city of Naples also, the beauty of whose palaces were, in a
great measure, spoiled by it. The ashes were carried as far as Calabria
by the force of the winds, burning up in their passage the grass and
high trees, many of which were borne down by the weight of them. An
infinity of birds also, and numberless animals of various kinds, covered
with this sulphureous mud, gave themselves up a prey to man. Now this
eruption lasted two nights and two days without intermission, though, it
is true, not always with the same force, but more or less: when it was
at its greatest height, even at Naples you heard a noise or thundering
like heavy artillery when two armies are engaged. The third day the
eruption ceased, so that the mountain made its appearance uncovered, to
the no small astonishment of every one who saw it. On this day, when I
went up with many people to the top of this mountain; I saw down into
its mouth, which was a round concavity of about a quarter of a mile in
circumference, in the middle of which the stones that had fallen were
boiling up, just as in a great cauldron of water that boils on the
fire. The fourth day it began to throw up again, and the seventh much
more, but still with less violence than the first night; it was at this
time that many people, who were unfortunately on the mountain, were
either suddenly covered with ashes, smothered with smoak, or, knocked
down by stones, burnt by the flame, and left dead on the spot. The smoak
continues to this day[39], and you often see in the night-time fire in
the midst of it. Finally, to complete the history of this new and
unforeseen event, in many parts of the new-made mountain, sulphur begins
to be generated." Giacomo di Toledo, towards the end of his dissertation
upon the phaenomena attending this eruption, says, that the lake of
Avernus had a communication with the sea, before the time of the
eruption; and that he apprehended that the air of Puzzole might come to
be affected in summer time, by the vapours from the stagnated waters of
the lake; which is actually the case.
You have, Sir, from these accounts, an instance of a mountain, of a
considerable height and dimensions, formed in a plain, by mere
explosion, in the space of forty-eight hours. The earthquakes having
been sensibly felt at a great distance from the spot where the opening
was made, proves clearly, that the subterraneous fire was at a great
depth below the surface of the plain; it is as clear that those
earthquakes, and the explosion, proceeded from the same cause, the
former having ceased upon the appearance of the latter. Does not this
circumstance evidently contradict the system of M. Buffon, and of all
the natural historians, who have placed the seat of the fire of
Volcanos towards the center, or near the summit of the mountains, which
they suppose to furnish the matter emitted? Did the matter which
proceeds from a Volcano in an eruption come from so inconsiderable a
depth as they imagine, that part of the mountain situated above their
supposed seat of the fire must necessarily be destroyed, or dissipated
in a very short time: on the contrary, an eruption usually adds to the
height and bulk of a Volcano; and who, that has had an opportunity of
making observations on Volcanos, does not know, that the matter they
have emitted for many ages, in lavas, ashes, smoak, &c. could it be
collected together, would more than suffice to form three such mountains
as the simple cone or mountain of the existing Volcano? With respect to
Vesuvius, this could be plainly proved; and I refer to my letter upon
the subject of Etna, to shew the quantity of matter thrown up in one
single eruption, by that terrible Volcano. Another proof, that the real
seat of the fire of Volcanos lies even greatly below the general level
of the country whence the mountain springs, is, that was it only at an
inconsiderable depth below the basis of the mountain, the quantity of
matter thrown up would soon leave so great a void immediately under it,
that the mountain itself must undoubtedly sink and disappear after a few
eruptions.
In the above accounts of the formation of the new mountain, we are told
that the matter first thrown up, was mud composed of water and ashes,
mixed with pumice stones and other burnt matter: on the road leading
from Puzzole to Cuma, part of the cone of this mountain has been cut
away, to widen the road. I have there seen that its composition is a
_tufa_ intermixed with pumice, some of which are really of the size of
an ox, as mentioned in Toledo's account, and exactly of the same nature
as the _tufa_ of which every other high ground in its neighbourhood is
composed; similar also to that which covers Herculaneum. According to
the above accounts, after the muddy shower ceased, it rained dry ashes:
this circumstance will account for the strata of loose pumice and ashes,
that are generally upon the surface of all the _tufas_ in this country,
and which were most probably thrown up in the same manner. At the first
opening of the earth, in the plain near Puzzole, both accounts say, that
springs of water burst forth; this water, mixing with the ashes,
certainly occasioned the muddy shower; when the springs were exhausted,
there must naturally have ensued a shower of dry ashes and pumice, of
which we have been likewise assured. I own, I was greatly pleased at
being in this manner enabled to account so well for the formation of
these _tufa_ stones and the veins of dry and loose burnt matter above
them, of which the soil of almost the whole country I am describing is
composed; and I do not know that any one has ever attended to this
circumstance, though I find that many authors, who have described this
country, have suspected that parts of it were formed by explosion.
Wherever then this sort of _tufa_ is found, there is certainly good
authority to suspect its having been formed in the same manner as the
_tufa_ of this new mountain, for, as I said before, Nature is generally
uniform in all her operations.
It is commonly imagined that the new mountain rose out of the Lucrine
lake, which was destroyed by it; but in the above account, no mention is
made of the Lucrine lake; it may be supposed then, that the famous dam,
which Strabo and many other ancient authors mention to have separated
that lake from the sea, had been ruined by time or accident, and that
the lake became a part of the sea before the explosion of 1538.
If the above-described eruption was terrible, that which formed the
Monte Barbaro (or Gauro, as it was formerly called), must have been
dreadful indeed. It joins immediately to the new mountain, which in
shape and composition it exactly resembles; but it is at least three
times as considerable. Its crater cannot be less than six miles in
circumference; the plain within the crater, one of the most fertile
spots I ever saw, is about four miles in circumference: there is no
entrance to this plain, but one on the East side of the mountain, made
evidently by art; in this section you have an opportunity of seeing that
the matter of which the mountain is composed is exactly similar to that
of the Monte Nuovo. It was this mountain that produced (as some authors
have supposed) the celebrated Falernian wine of the ancients.
Cuma, allowed to have been the most ancient city of Italy, was built on
an eminence, which is likewise composed of _tufa_, and may be naturally
supposed a section of the cone formed by a very ancient explosion.
The lake of Avernus fills the bottom of the crater of a mountain,
undoubtedly produced by explosion, and whose interior and exterior
form, as well as the matter of which it is composed, exactly resemble
the Monte Barbaro and Monte Nuovo. At that part of the basis of this
mountain which is washed by the sea of the bay of Puzzole, the sand is
still very hot, though constantly washed by the waves; and into the cone
of the mountain, near this hot sand, a narrow passage of about 100 paces
in length is cut, and leads to a fountain of boiling water, which,
though brackish, boils fish and flesh without giving them any bad taste
or quality, as I have experienced more than once. This place is called
Nero's bath, and is still made use of for a sudatory, as it was by the
ancients; the steam that rises from the hot fountain abovementioned,
confined in the narrow subterraneous passage, soon produces a violent
perspiration upon the patient who sits therein. This bath is reckoned a
great specifick in that distemper which is supposed to have made its
appearance at Naples before it spread its contagion over the other
parts of Europe.
Virgil and other ancient authors say, that birds could not fly with
safety over the lake of Avernus, but that they fell therein; a
circumstance favouring my opinion, that this was once the mouth of a
Volcano. The vapour of the sulphur and other minerals must undoubtedly
have been more powerful, the nearer we go back to the time of the
explosion of the Volcano; and I am convinced that there are still some
remains of those vapours upon this lake, as I have observed there are
very seldom any water-fowl upon it; and that when they do go there, it
is but for a short time; whilst all the other lakes in the neighbourhood
are constantly covered with them, in the winter season. Upon Mount
Vesuvius, in the year 1766, during an eruption, when the air was
impregnated with noxious vapours, I have myself picked up dead birds
frequently.
The castle of Baia stands upon a considerable eminence, composed of the
usual _tufa_ and strata of pumice and ashes; from which I concluded I
should find some remains of the craters from whence the matter issued:
accordingly, having ascended the hill, I soon discovered two very
visible craters, just behind the castle.
The lake called the Mare-morto was also, most probably, the crater, from
whence issued the materials which formed the Promontory of Misenum, and
the high grounds around this lake. Under the ruins of an ancient
building, near the point of Misenum, in a vault, there is a vapour, or
_mofete_, exactly similar in its effects to that of the Grotto del Cane,
as I have often experienced.
The form of the little island of Nisida shews plainly its origin[40]. It
is half a hollow cone of a Volcano cut perpendicularly; the half crater
forms a little harbour called the Porto Pavone; I suppose the other half
of the cone to have been detached into the sea by earthquakes, or
perhaps by the violence of the waves, as the part that is wanting is the
side next to the open sea.
The fertile and pleasant island of Procita shews also most evident signs
of its production by explosion, the nature of its soil being directly
similar to that of Baia and Puzzole; this island seems really, as was
imagined by the ancients, to have been detached from the neighbouring
island of Ischia.