"The mass extended for a breadth of about 1000 paces, advancing gradually, more or less rapidly according to the nature of the ground over which it moved, but making steady progress. It had formed two branches, one going in a northerly, and the other in a westerly direction. No danger beyond loss of trees or crops was apprehended from the former, but the second was moving in a direct line for the town of Bronte, and to it we confined our attention. The townspeople, on their part, had not been idle. I have before mentioned the clearance which they made of their goods, but precautions had also been taken outside the town, with a view, if possible, to arrest the progress of the lava; and a very massive wall of coarse loose work was in the course of erection across a valley down which the stream must flow. We heard afterward, that the impelling power was spent before the strength of this work was put to the test, but had it failed, Bronte had been lost. It is not easy to convey by words any very accurate idea. The lava appeared to be from thirty to forty feet in depth, and some notion of its aspect and progress may be formed by imagining a hill of loose stones of all sizes, the summit or brow of which is continually falling to the base, and as constantly renewed by unseen pressure from behind. Down it came in large masses, each leaving behind it a fiery track, as the red-hot interior was for a moment or two exposed. The impression most strongly left on my mind was that of its irresistible force. It did not advance rapidly; there was no difficulty in approaching it, as I did, closely, and taking out pieces of red-hot stone; the rattling of the blocks overhead gave ample notice of their descent down the inclined face of the stream, and a few paces to the rear, or aside, were quite enough to take me quite clear of them; but still onward, onward it came, foot by foot it encroached on the ground at its base, changing the whole face of the country, leaving hills where formerly valleys had been, overwhelming every work of man that it encountered in its progress, and leaving all behind one black, rough, and monotonous mass of hard and barren lava. It had advanced considerably during the night. On the previous evening I had measured the distance from the base of the moving hill to the walls of a deserted house which stood, surrounded by trees, at about fifty yards off, and, though separated from it by a road, evidently exposed to the full power of the stream. Not a trace of it was now left, and it was difficult to make a guess at where it had been. The owners of the adjacent lands were busied in all directions felling the timber that stood in the line of the advancing fire, but they could not in many instances do it fast enough to save their property from destruction; and it was not a little interesting to watch the effect produced on many a goodly tree, first thoroughly dried by the heat of