Passages from the Life of a Philosopher

opportunity of the termination of one of the most considerable of its eruptions to run towards the gap and cautiously to pick my way down to the rock which hid from me, as I supposed, the liquid lava. I was armed with two phials, one of common smelling salts, and the other containing a solution of ammonia. On reaching the rock, I found it projected over a lake which was really filled by liquid fiery lava. I immediately laid myself down, and looking over its edge, saw, with great delight, lava actually in a state of fusion. 〈WAVES IN LAKE OF FLUID LAVA.〉 Presently I observed a small bubble swelling up on the surface of the fluid lava: it became gradually larger and larger, but did not burst. I had some vague suspicion that {221} this indicated a coming eruption; but on looking at my watch, I was assured that only one minute had elapsed since the termination of the last. I therefore watched its progress; after a time the bubble slowly subsided without breaking. I now found the heat of the rock on which I was reposing, and the radiation from the fluid lava, almost insupportable, whilst the sulphurous effluvium painfully affected my lungs. On looking around, I fortunately observed a spot a few feet above me, from which I could, in a standing position, get a better view of the lake, and perhaps suffer less inconvenience from its vapours. Having reached this spot, I continued to observe the slow formation and absorption of these vesicles of lava. One of them soon appeared. Another soon followed at a different part of the fiery lake, but, like its predecessor, it disappeared as quietly. Another swelling now arose about half way distant from the centre of the cauldron, which enlarged much beyond its predecessors in point of size. It attained a diameter of about three feet, and then burst, but not with any explosion. The waves it propagated in the fiery fluid passed on to the sides, and were thence reflected back just as would have happened in a lake of water of the same dimensions. This phenomenon reappeared several times, some of the bubbles being considerably larger in size, and making proportionally greater disturbance in the liquid of this miniature crater. I would gladly have remained a longer time, but the excessive heat, the noxious vapours, and the warning of my chronometer forbade it. I climbed back through the gap by which I had descended, and rushed as fast as I could to a safe distance from the coming eruption. I was much exhausted by the heat, although I suffered still greater inconvenience from the vapours. From my {222} ob­ser­va­tions of the eruptions before my descent into this little crater, I had estimated that I might safely allow myself six minutes, but not more than eight, if I descended into the crater immediately after an eruption. If my memory does not fail me, I passed about six minutes in examining it, and the next explosion occurred ten minutes after the former one. On my return to Naples I found that a pair of thick boots I had worn on this expedition were entirely destroyed by the heat, and fell to pieces in my attempt to take them off. 〈BISCUITS AND WHISKY.〉 On my return from the pit of burning fire, I sat down with my companion to refresh myself with a few biscuits contained in our basket. Cold water would have been the most refreshing fluid we could have desired, but we had none, and my impatient friend cried out, “I wish I had a glass of whisky!” It immediately occurred to me to feel in my own basket for a certain glass bottle preserved in a tight leather case, which fortunately being found, I presented to my astonished friend, with the remark that it contained half a pint of the finest Irish whisky. This piece of good luck for my fellow-traveller arose not from my love but from my dislike of whisky. Shortly before my Italian tour I had been travelling in the north of Ireland, and having exhausted my brandy, was unable to replace it by anything but whisky, a drink which I can only tolerate under very exceptional circumstances.