The wonders of the world : $b a complete museum, descriptive and pictorial, of the wonderful phenomena and results of nature, science and artAbbott, John Loraine
Science
The wonders of the world : $b a complete museum, descriptive and pictorial, of the wonderful phenomena and results of nature, science and art
Abbott, John Loraine
Curiosities and wonders
From the more elevated summit, all the inner part of the burning crater,
and the mode of its eruption, may be seen. It is placed about half-way
up, on the north-west side of the mountain, and has a diameter not
exceeding two hundred and fifty feet. Burning stones are thrown up at
regular intervals of seven or eight minutes, ascending in somewhat
diverging rays. While a portion of them roll down toward the sea, the
greater part fall back into the crater; and these being again cast out
by a subsequent eruption, are thus tossed about until they are broken
and reduced to ashes. The volcano, however, constantly supplies others,
and seems inexhaustible in this species of productions. Spallanzani
affirms that, in the more violent eruptions, the ejected matter rises to
the hight of half a mile, or even higher, many of the ignited stones
being thrown above the highest summit of the mountain.
The erupted stones, which appear black in the day-time, have at night a
deep red color, and sparkle like fire-works. Each explosion is
accompanied by flames or smoke, the latter resembling clouds, in the
lower part black, in the upper white and shining, and separating into
globular and irregular forms. In particularly high winds from the south
or south-east, the smoke spreads over every part of the island.
Spallanzani observed this volcano on a particular night, when the latter
of these winds blew with great violence. The clear sky exhibited the
appearance of a beautiful aurora borealis over that part of the mountain
on which the volcano is situated, and which from time to time became
more red and brilliant, in proportion as the ignited stones were thrown
to a greater hight. The violence of the convulsions depends on that of
the wind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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