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