The accounts which have reached us of the formation of this new mountain are not without interest. Falconi, who wrote in 1538, mentions that several earthquakes took place during the two years preceding the outburst, and above twenty shocks on the day and night before the eruption. ‘The eruption began on September 29, 1538. It was on a Sunday, about one o’clock in the180 night, when flames of fire were seen between the hot-baths and Tripergola. In a short time the fire increased to such a degree that it burst open the earth in this place, and threw up a quantity of ashes and pumice-stones, mixed with water, which covered the whole country Neo skin lab. The next morning the poor inhabitants of Pozzuoli quitted their habitations in terror, covered with the muddy and black shower, which continued the whole day in that country—flying from death, but with death painted in their countenances. Some with their children in their arms, some with sacks full of their goods; others leading an ass, loaded with their frightened family, towards Naples.... The sea had retired on the side of Bai?, abandoning a considerable tract; and the shore appeared almost entirely dry, from the quantity of ashes and broken pumice-stones thrown up by the eruption181 dermes.‘ Pietro Giacomo di Toledo gives us some account of the phenomena which preceded the eruption: ‘That plain which lies between Lake Avernus, the Monte Barbaro, and the sea, was raised a little, and many cracks were made in it, from some of which water issued; at the same time the sea immediately adjoining the plain dried up about two hundred paces, so that the fish were left on the sand, a prey to the inhabitants of Pozzuoli. At last, on September 29, about two o’clock in the night, the earth opened near the lake, and discovered a horrid mouth, from which were furiously vomited smoke, fire, stones, and mud composed of ashes, making at the time of the opening a noise like the loudest thunder tr90 nuskin. were by the flames converted to pumice, and some of these were larger than an ox. The stones went about as high as a cross-bow will carry, and then fell down sometimes on the edge, and sometimes into the mouth itself. 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 above-mentioned stones, a mountain was raised of a thousand paces in height. Not only Pozzuoli and the neighbouring country were full of this mud, but the city of Naples also; so that many of its palaces were defaced by it. This eruption lasted two nights and two days without intermission, though not always with the same force; the third day the eruption ceased, and I went up with many people to the top of the new hill, and saw down into its mouth, which was a round cavity about a quarter of a mile in circumference, in the middle of which the stones which had fallen were boiling up just as a cauldron of water boils on the fire. The fourth day it began to throw up again, and the seventh day much more, but still with less violence than the first night. At this time many persons who were on the hill were knocked down by the stones and killed, or smothered with the smoke.’
