The large stones were thrown about as high as a crossbow would carry, and then fell, sometimes into the lake, sometimes into the chasm again; but mostly upon either side of it. The mud was ash-colored, very liquid at first but rapidly thickening; and within thirty-six hours the site of Pozzuoli was covered by a volcanic cone. A contemporary chronicler, present at the time, says this cone was one thousand paces in height; by which he probably meant slant height. The cone at present is four hundred and forty feet above the Bay of Naples. Two days later it again began to cast forth stones and ashes; and again on the seventh day. Several persons who had ascended the hill were killed in this sudden outbreak by falling stones, or smothered by the sulphurous vapors. This “Monte Nuovo” or New Mountain, is a mile and a half in circumference at the base, and four hundred and twenty-one feet deep. It is apparent, then, that its bottom is nineteen feet above the sea level. The Lucrine Lake was almost filled up. Only a shallow pool remains. Falconi writes that from Naples the flames were seen, bursting forth in the night, between the hot-baths and Tripergola. The next morning might be seen the poor people flying in terror, begrimed with the black and muddy shower, which continued throughout the day. Flying from death, death was painted in their countenances. Some bore their children in their arms; some carried sacks full of goods; some led donkeys loaded with valuables, or such as were unable to walk. The few eruptions after 1039 had been feeble. We find the mountain coming to be regarded as extinct as a volcanic crater. Nearly five centuries passed. Bracini, who visited it in 1631, writes that “the crater was about five miles in circumference, and above a thousand feet deep; its sides were covered with brushwood, and at the bottom was a plain on which cattle grazed. In the woody parts wild boars frequently harbored. In one part of the plain, covered with ashes, were three small pools; one filled with hot and bitter water, another salter than the sea, and a third hot but tasteless.” Such was the general character of the crater in A. D., 78, save that it was not so deep. In December, 1631, with a sudden, tremendous roar, the mountain flamed into action. This outbreak has never been surpassed in fury and destructiveness by any eruption of Vesuvius, unless we except the one which destroyed Pompeii. The fatalities between the two eruptions had been few, the most of the mischief being damage to property. One of the eruptions failed to throw out any marked amount of matter of any sort.