File:San Francisco's horror of earthquake and fire to which is added graphic accounts of the eruptions of Vesuvius and many other volcanoes, explaining the causes of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, (14760331186).jpg

Identifier: sanfranciscoshor00wils (find matches)
Title: San Francisco's horror of earthquake and fire ... to which is added graphic accounts of the eruptions of Vesuvius and many other volcanoes, explaining the causes of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, comp. from stories told by eye witnesses of these frightful scenes
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Wilson, James Russel. (from old catalog)
Subjects: San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, Calif., 1906 Volcanoes. (from old catalog)
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa., National publishing co
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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at festooned them. The ground since the firstearthquake in 63 had often been shaken by slight shocks, whenat length, in August 79, they became more numerous and violent,and, on the night preceding the eruption, so tremendous as tothreaten everything with destruction. A morning of comparative repose succeeded, and the terrifiedinhabitants of those devoted towns no doubt breathed more freely,and hoped the worst was over, when, about one oclock in theafternoon, the Elder Pliny, who was stationed in command of theRoman fleet at Misenum in full view of Vesuvius, beheld ahuge black cloud ascending from the mountain, which, risingslowly always higher, at last spread out aloft like the head ofone of those picturesque flat-topped pines which form such anornament of the Italian landscape. The meaning of such a phenomenon was to Pliny and to AMAZING PHENOMENA OF VOLCANOES. 289 everyone a mystery. We know now too well what it imports,and they were not long left in donbt. From that cloud descended
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TERRIFIC ERUPTION OF THE GREAT CRATER OF VESUVIUS. Stones, ashes, and pumice ; and the cloud itself lowered down upon the surrounding country, involving land and sea in profound darkness, pierced by flashes of fire more vivid than lightning.19-s. F. 290 AMAZING PHENOMENA OF VOLCANOES. These, with the volumes of ashes that began to eucuinberthe soil, and which covered the sea with floating pumice-stone ;the constant hea\-ing of the ground ; and the sudden recoil of thesea, form a picture which is wonderfully well described by thethe Younger Plinv. His uncle, animated by an eager desire toknow what was ooiuo- on, and to afford aid to the inhabitants ofthe towns, made sail for the nearest point of the coast and landed ;but was instanth enveloped in the dense sulphureous vapor thatswept down from the mountain, and perished miserably. It does not seem that any lava flowed on that occasion.Pompeii was buried under the ashes ; Herculaneum by a torrentof mud, probably the contents of the crat

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