happens to have a tafte for the trifling diltinction that finery can confer, fuffer her not a moment to fancy, when fhe appears in public, that Sir Edward or the Colonel are finer gentlemen than her husband. The bane of married happiness among the city men in general has been, that finding themselves unfit for polite life, they transferred their vanity to their ladies, dreffed them up gaily, and fent them out a gallanting; while the good man was to regale with port-wine or rum-punch, perhaps among mean companions, after the compting-house was shut: this practice produced the ridicule thrown on them in all our comedies and novels fince commerce began to profper. But now that I am fo near the fubject, a word or two on Jealoufy may not be amifs, for though not a failing of the prefent age's growth, yet the feeds of it are too certainly fown in every warm bofom for us to neglect it as a fault of no confequence. If you are ever tempted to be jealous, watch your I wife narrowly-but never teize her; Defeription of the Island of Stromboli. By M. Dolomieu*. LEFT Panaria about the beginning of the night for the Ifland of Stromboli, diftant from twelve to fifteen miles. I frequently faw its fires, and enjoyed, during the whole night, the fight of its intermittent ignition. I approached it with the greater eagernefs, and furveyed its eruptions with the greater attention, as I knew that the day would deprive me of a part of the interesting circumftances of this fingular volcano. The inflamed crater is fituated on the north-eaft part of the island, on the side of the mountain. I faw it discharging the whole night over, at regular intervals of feven or eight minutes, red hot ftones that rofe to the height of more than a hundred feet, in a direction fomewhat diverging, though the greater part of them your fell back again into the crater; the reft tumbled down into the fea. Each explosion was accompanied with a volume of flame of the colour of that produced in fire-works by means of camphor and fpirit of wine: this flame fometimes lafted four or five minutes, and then was fuddenly extinguished. A dull noife, like that made by a mine when it meets with little refiftance, was heard a confiderable time after the explofion of which it was the effect, though apparently independent of it. The ftones when ejected are of a bright red colour, and fparkle like our fire-works. I could hardly fatisfy myfelf with beholding this fingular specta cle. However, before the day appear ed, I got round the island and landed on the Eaft side. Voyage aux iles de Lipari. The The Island of Stromboli, anciently Strongyle, feen from a distance, appears exactly conical, but it lofes this regular form when approached. It then appears a mountain terminated by two fummits of different heights, the fides of which are open, rent, and deformed by craters that have burft forth over all its furface, by the lava these have poured forth, and by torrents of water. On all hands are obferved the effect of an ever-active fire, that inceffantly accumulates, deftroys, changes and overturns its own productions. The island is steep and inacceffible on three fides, and wherever the foot of the mountain is washed by the fea: but on the North and Eaft its bafe is produced fo as to form an inclined plane, which terminates in a flat on the shore. The whole island may be about twelve miles in circumference. As foon as I had landed, far from meeting with that rude reception which M. Brydone was afraid of, I was furrounded with people who offered me every kindness in their power, and were eager to accompany me as guides. Laccepted the good offices of him who feemed to me beft acquainted with the ifland, and followed him with an ardour which the grand operations of nature always infpire me with. I traverfed the vineyards which extend over all the plain, and cover in that part the foot of the mountain for one third of its height, and it was not without difficulty that I arrived at the highest fummit. This mountain is nearly a thoufand paces high; it is not very fteep, and there is tolerably-firm footing on porous ftones and scoriæ. Its fummit terminates in two points, but I found on neither the least veftiges of a crater; though one would have expected to find the chief crater, which has been formed by the body of the mountain, on the most elevated place, and nearly in the centre of the island. But this volcano has undergone fo many revolutions, its fift form has been fo much altered by the mouths which have been opened in the inferior parts, that the first crater must have been obliterated. In afcending, as I did, on the north-east side, the lowest point first presents itself; it is round, and covered with afhes or volcanic fand. It is joined to the second by a mountain with an acute ridge, which it is neceffary to cross in going from one to the other. I walked on it not without fear of flipping by a false step, and of falling over the steep declivity on both fides into the fea: but I was encouraged when I found my feet fink into the afhes, by which I acquired stability. This acute ridge is given to the moveable fand by the winds, The fecond point is the highest, and though rounded, is more pointed than the other. Smoke iffues from differ ent places of its fummit by little holes of an inch in diameter. On this I gathered fulphur mixed with vitriolic falt, which is here sublimed: I also pickt up, on the furface of the ashes, fome falt which had been confolidated with the particles of the afhes, and formed a pretty folid cruft. This falt is a mixture of fal ammoniac and alum. It must be remarked, that the vapours which iffue at this place do not alter or whiten the fubftances against which they strike, or which they meet with in their paffage, because the whole fand of the mountain confifts of fragments of black fhorl, which is neither so eas fily attacked, nor penetrated by the fulphureous acid, as the lavas with an argillaceous basis. The fmoke which penetrates and traverses the whole body of this mountain proves, not that there is a proper funnel by way of chimney which perforates it from bottom to top; but that it is formed by the accumulation of light and porous fubftances permeable to fmoke, as all thofe mountains are that have made part of a crater. From the fummit of the high point we have a view of the inflamed crater: we perceive its infide, and fee it make its eruptions below us. I must own. that when I firft faw the explosion, the fight frightened me: I was afiaid that that the ftones might reach me; but I grew fecure when I found that they did not rife fo high by an hundred feet. This crater, the only one now from which there are eruptions, is placed, as I have already faid, to the north-eaft, on the fide of the mountain about half way up: it is very fmall, I think hardly fifty feet in diameter. It is in the fhape of a funnel, terminating at the bottom in a point. During the time that I obferved it, the eruptions fucceeded one another with as much regularity as they had done in the night, and each intermiffion was nearly feven minutes. I faw no flames, by reafon of the clearness of the day; but a volume of white fmoke iffued at the fame time with the ftones, and was diffipated in the air as if it had been absorbed in it. The ftones ejec ted by the volcano feemed black; they tofe in groups, and went off diverging; the greater part of them fell back into the crater, and rolling to the bottom, feemed to obftruct the exit of the vapours generated at the inftant of the explofion, and were again difcharged by the fubfequent eruption. Thus they are toffed up and down till they are broken and reduced to afhes; but the volca no conftantly fupplies others, and is inexhaustible in this fort of productions. The approach of the eruption is announced by no noife nor dull murmur in the interior part of the mountain, and one is always furprifed with the discharge of the ftones into the air. The noife that accompanies them is very inconfiderable. That of the fall of the ftones into the crater has nearly as much effect. The volcano was at this time in its ftate of greatest tranquillity; for there are feaTons in which it appears more enraged, when the fermentation is more ac tive, when the eruptions are more frequent, and more violent: the ftones are then elevated to a greater height, they form rays ftill more diverging, and are thrown a good way into the fea. In general, the inflammation is more confiderable and more active in Winter than in Summer; at the approach of bad weather, and in tempefts, than during a calm. I paffed twice, about fifteen years ago, within fight of Stromboli during the night in the time of a hurricane. I faw the volcano make violent explofions, with intermissions of only two or three minutes. The ftones were thrown more than two hundred paces into the fea: a red and fhining flame continued conftantly to iffue from the crater, and illuminated all around to a great distance. I began to defcend the mountain on the fouth-eaft, running on the moveable afhes with which it is covered. There have been on this fide, at different elevations, feveral eruptions at no diftant period. I went along the brink of a confiderable difruption produced by one of them. I faw by the excavation it had caufed, that the interior of the mountain is formed almost entirely of afhes and scoriæ difpofed in pretty regular ftrata, which have the fame inclination with the external furface. I found half way down, a fpring of water, cold, fweet, light, and fit for drinking it never fails, and is the only refource of the inhabitants when their cifterns are exhaufted, and when the heats have dried up another fpring at the foot of the mountain, which happens every Summer. This little fountain, on fo elevated a fpot, in the midft of volcanic ashes, is very remarkable; its refervoir muft neceffarily exift in fome diftant part of the mountain, and be compofed of fand and porous stones, fubftances which cannot retain water fince they are permeable to smoke: but how comes it that the internal heat and the fire of a burning fun do not diffipate all the moisture and every drop of water which this mountain abforbs during Winter? I imagine that the water which fupplies this fpring is produced by an evaporation taking place in the internal parts of the the mountain, the vapours of which are condensed at top as in a receiver. My opinion is the more probable, as the fpring at the foot of the mountain is warm, and the inhabitants let the water stand to cool before they drink it. The fame fire that heats the refervoir of the fpring below may produce that at top by a kind of diftillation. One cannot reach the foot of the mountain on that part of the foutheaft fide where I began to defcend; it is fteep, and is broken into precipices and gulphs. On leaving the fpring I made a turn, always walking on the fand, and purfuing a road frequented by the women who come hither for water. I reached the northcaft, and descended into the plain by the fame vineyards through which I before paffed. All the efforts of the mountain are uniformly exerted, and have been fo for a long time, on the fteep fides of the ifland, and it is now more than a century fince there has been any eruption near the plain. Thus the inhabitants live there in the greateft fecurity, they view with unconcern the daily explosions of the crater, they dread no danger from the formation of new oiifices, but cultivate fuccefsfully their little plain where the vine and cotton thrive, which, by means of barter, are fufficient for fupplying all their wants. The houfes ftand detached, and the population confifts of nearly two hundred perfons. Stromboli is the only volcano known that has its eruptions fo frequent without any intervals of reft. The manner too in which its explofions are made do not refemble thofe of other volcanoes. The fermentation of others increafes by degrees; it is announced by fubterranean noifes, a proof of great effervefcence and of the fubfequent eruption, which is generally preceded by a thick volume of fmoke mixed with flames. In this volcano the eruptions happen without any previous notice; and they seem the effect of a particular air, or of inflammable va pours fuddenly ignited, which explode while they discharge the stones that lie in their way. It is even probable that the theory of inflammable air alone will fufficiently account for all the phenomena of this mountain; the internal fire may difengage the inflammable gas from the materials in the neighbourhood of its feat without being in immediate contact, in the fame way as it caufes ebullition in the hot fprings; that gas may arrive by differ ent channels at the principal cavity, where the fire actually exifts, and be there fuddenly inflamed. Fire produces air in proportion to its activity, which is greater in ftorms than in a calm. This, however, is merely an hypothefis, which I am ready to give up when a better is propofed. It would be of importance to know how long the explosions have proceeded from the prefent crater; whether it has always preferved its prefent figure; if it difcharged flames when the mountain was open on any other part of its furface; if the regularity of its eruptions has ever been subject to change when other craters have been in a flate of inflammation; and if these had, like it, their periods of regular intermiffion: but I had no fatisfactory anfwers to the queftions I put on thefe fubjects, nor have I been able to ebtain from ancient authors any inform ation with regard to them. This volcano no longer throws out any lavas, properly fo called; but only fuch as are porous, and black, or reddish. All the lavas that are buried under the afhes, or that are discoverable in the rents, or on the precipices, are ancient. They are for the moit part of a greyish or blackish colour, very heavy and compact, and extremely hard; they contain abundance of black thorls, and they are enveloped with a reddish cruft which befpeaks an incipient decompofition. The fand which forms the fummit of the moun tain is black, fine, and shining; that at the bottom is coarfer; in both are to be feen fragments of fchorlaccous cryftals, which compofe them entire ly, and feem in fome fort to be peculiar to this volcano. In this fand are raised the vegetable productions of the ifland, and they grow with the greateft luxuriance. The ancient poets made Stromboli the abode of Eolus; not, as fome have imagined, becaufe the island occafions tempefts; but because the inhabitants, by the activity of the mountain, and by the direction of the fmoke that iffues from it, predicted the winds that were to blow; and this they were enabled to do three days before the winds changed. Some authors pretend that it was affigned to Æolus for a habitation, on account of violent winds that fometimes iffue from the apertures in the inland; but this phenomenon is not peculiar to Stromboli. All burning volcanoes often occafion a difengagement of water in vapour which produces a violent current of air like that which rushes from the Eolipile. Efay on the Subftances that make the Bafts of the Lavas of the Lipari Iflands *. N order to understand the theory fary for the Naturalift to ftudy, not only the volcanoes themselves, but the bafe of the mountains on which these volcanoes reft: an inquiry which has been hitherto but too much neglected. The fubftances on which thefe fires aft have been inferred from an inveftigation of volcanic products alone; and, in order to understand the nature of their primitive fubftances, they have been fubjected a fecond time to the force of fire, which has reduced them all to one and the fame kind of glass, from which it has been concluded that VOL. VII. No 40. all volcanic products have been formed from one and the fame kind of rock, and that the fubterranean fires have always acted on, and variously modified the fame fort of stone. Analyfis by fire is, in certain circumflances, the most fallacious that can be employed; the substances analysed, in whatever order or proportion the operation is made, are all fufible. We have no means of meafuring the exact degree of heat employed; its intensity or activity are affected by an infinity of circumftances which we are unable to afcertain; and the fame substance which to-day may come out from our furnaces untouched, may to-morrow be found completely altered, even althoʼ the fire employed fhould not appear to us to have been more violent. Analyfts by different menftrua have not been more fuccefsful. Bergman, by treating lava with acids, found in them argillaceous earth, quartz, the earth of magnefia, and iron; and he gives the proportions with aftonishing precifion. But however accurate the experiments of this great chymift may have been, they give us no information with regard to lavas in general; they only fhew the compofition of the particular specimens that he tried; and even after the defcription that he has given, we are a good deal in the dark with regard to the fpecies of lava that he fubjected to analyfis. It would be every volcanic product, as it would be to believe that the component parts of a fiffile rock were the fame with those of every rock compofed of laminæ or thin ftrata. If, inftead of experiments, the inutility of which is apparent from the little knowledge we have acquired from them, we had examined Nature herself, and had inquired, in fuch mountains, into the fubftances with which they fupply the fubterraneous fires, and had compared them in their native ftate with the products of volcanoes; we would have found that LI *From the fame. thefe |