Breislak remarked certain changes in the character of the earth’s motions during this six hours’ eruption, which led him to some particular conjecture of the cause.  At the beginning the trembling was continual, and accompanied by a hollow noise, similar to that occasioned by a river falling into a subterranean cavern.  The lava, at the time of its being disgorged, from the impetuous and uninterrupted manner in which it was ejected, causing it to strike violently against the walls of the vent, occasioned a continual oscillation of the mountain.  Toward the middle of the night this vibratory motion ceased, and was succeeded by distant shocks.  The fluid mass, diminished in quantity, now pressed less violently against the walls of the aperture, and no longer issued in a continual and gushing stream, but only at intervals, when the interior fermentation elevated the boiling matter above the mouth.  About 4 A. M. the shocks began to be less numerous, and the intervals between them rendered their force and duration more perceptible.

During this tremendous eruption at the base of the Vesuvian cone, and the fearful earthquakes which accompanied it, the summit was tranquil.  The sky was serene, the stars were brilliant, and only over Vesuvius hung a thick, dark smoke-cloud, lighted up into an auroral arch by the glare of a stream of fire more than two miles long, and more than a quarter of a mile broad.  The sea was calm, and reflected the red glare; while from the source of the lava came continual jets of uprushing incandescent stones.  Nearer to view, Torre del Greco in flames, and clouds of black smoke, with falling houses, presented a dark and tragical foreground, heightened by the subterranean thunder of the mountain, and the groans and lamentations of fifteen thousand ruined men, women and children.

The heavy clouds of ashes which were thrown out on this occasion gathered in the early morning into a mighty shadow over Naples and the neighborhood; the sun rose pale and obscure, and a long, dim twilight reigned afterward.

Such were the phenomena on the western side of Vesuvius.  They were matched by others on the eastern aspect, not visible at Naples, except by reflection of their light in the atmosphere.  The lava on this side flowed eastward, along a route often traversed by lava, by the broken crest of the Cognolo and the valley of Sorienta.  The extreme length to which this current reached was not less than an Italian mile.  The cubic content was estimated to be half that already assigned to the western currents.  Taken together they amounted to 20,744,445 cubic metres, or 2,804,440 cubic fathoms; the constitution of the lava being the same in each, both springing from one deep-seated reservoir of fluid rock.

The eruption of lava ceased on the 16th, and then followed heavy discharges of ashes, violent shocks of earthquakes, thunder and lightning in the columns of vapors and ashes, and finally heavy rains, lasting till the 3d of July.  The barometer during all the eruption was steady.