From my villa, situated between Herculaneum and Pompeii, near the convent of the Calmaldolese (marked 7 in Plate I.) I had watched the growing of this little mountain; and, by taking drawings of it from time to time, I could perceive its increase most minutely. I make no doubt but that the whole of Mount Vesuvius has been formed in the same manner; and as these observations seem to me to account for the various irregular strata, which are met with in the neighbourhood of Volcanos, I have ventured to inclose, for your Lordship's inspection, a copy of the abovementioned drawings. (Plate III.) The lava continued to run over the ancient crater in small streams, sometimes on one side, and sometimes on another, till the 18th of October, when I took particular notice that there was not the least lava to be seen; owing, I imagine, to its being employed in forcing its way towards the place where it burst out the following day. As I had, contrary to the opinion of most people here, foretold the approaching eruption[7], and had observed a great fermentation in the mountain after the heavy rains which fell the 13th and 14th of October; I was not surprized, on the 19th following, at seven of the clock in the morning, to perceive from my villa every symptom of the eruption being just at hand. From the top of the little mountain issued a thick black smoak, so thick that it seemed to have difficulty in forcing its way out; cloud after cloud mounted with a hasty spiral motion, and every minute a volley of great stones were shot up to an immense height in the midst of these clouds; by degrees, the smoak took the exact shape of a huge pine-tree, such as Pliny the younger described in his letter to Tacitus, where he gives an account of the fatal eruption in which his uncle perished[8]. This column of black smoak, after having mounted an extraordinary height, bent with the wind towards Caprea, and actually reached over that island, which is not less than twenty-eight miles from Vesuvius.