has never been of large dimensions, but was a model of the most perfect Gothic, if we may credit its remains, particularly those of a cloister, which are equal to any thing we have in that style of architecture. This beautiful fragment consists of eight windows, with light buttresses between them, and joins a ruined chapel on one side, and on the other a hall or refectory, which still preserves its form sufficiently to give an idea of its just proportions. To this is connected by ruined walls a massy tower. What the ancient use of this fabric was, whether it belonged to the ecclesiastical or civil part of the monastery, is not now apparent; but at present it gives a picturesque form to the ruin, which appears to more advantage by the pre-eminence of some superior part.

At right angles with the chapel runs another cloister, a longer building, but of coarser workmanship, and almost covered with ivy. The river, which enters the valley at the distance of about half a mile from the ruin, takes a sweep towards it, and passing under this cloister, opens into what was once the great court, and makes its exit through an arch in the wall on the opposite side.

"This venerable pile,

-clad in the mossy vest of fleeting time,"

and decorated all over with variety of lychens, streaming weatherstains, and twisting shrubs, is shaded by ancient oaks, which, hanging over it, adorn its broken walls without encumbering them. In short, the valley, the river, the path, and the ruins are all highly pleasing; the parts are beautiful, and the whole is harmonious.

They who have lately seen Ford-abbey will stare at this description of it. And well may they stare; for this description antedates its present state by at least a century. If they had seen it in the year 1675, they might probably have seen it as it is here described. Now, alas! it wears another face. It has been in the hands of improvement. Its simplicity is gone; and miserable ravage has been made through every part. The ruin is patched up into an awkward dwelling; old parts and new are blended together, to the mutual disgrace of both. The elegant cloister is still left; but it is completely repaired, whitewashed, and converted into a green-house. The hall too is modernized, and every other part. Sash windows glare over pointed arches, and Gothic walls are adorned with Indian paper.

The grounds have undergone the same reformation. The natural groves and lawns are destroyed; vistas and regular slopes supply their room. The winding path, which contemplation naturally marked out, is gone; succeeded by straight walks, and terraces adorned with urns and statues; while the river and its fringed banks have given way to canals and stew ponds. In a word, a scene abounding with so many natural beauties was never perhaps more wretchedly de

formed.'

When we compare the descriptions given by Mr.Gilpin with those of his predecessor Mr.Gray*, we must confess that the last See his Journey through the North of England, in Mason's Me-. moirs, Sect. v. Let. iv.

are the most glowing and poetical: but the first appear to have the greatest precision, and to convey the clearest picture to the eye of the mind. Mr. Gray excites a thousand enchanting associations, and, by the talisman of his genius, throws a splendour unborrowed of the sun on every object which he notices; while Mr. Gilpin, though not so powerful a magician, is perhaps a better painter. His outline is more faithful and determined, and his colouring is less heightened beyond the truth. He indeed may be said to be the first who has examined the face of a country by the rules of picturesque beauty, opening the sources of those pleasures which are derived from the comparison; and from his criticisms on natural and artificial scenery have originated, in a great measure, a spirit of investigation and a system of improvement, which, we doubt not, will establish our superiority in an art which we may justly call

our own.

Rogers.

ART. V. Travels in the Two Sicilies, and some Parts of the Apennines, translated from the Original Italian of the Abbe Lazzaro Spallanzani, Professor-Royal of Natural History in the University of Pavia, &c. &c. 8vo. 4 Vols. With Eleven Plates. 11. 8s. Boards. Robinsons. 1798.

THE

HE obligations of the literary world to the Abbate Spallanzani are already considerable, and his science has given celebrity to his age and country; the latter of which he has illuminated as a single star shines through the gloom of a dark night. Of the present work, it may be justly remarked that it presents a treasure of geology and chemical information; although it may be found, in certain positions and deductions, liable to be questioned, and in other particulars rather tod much dilated. We cannot sufficiently admire the indefatigable perseverance of this philosopher, which supported him in so many hazardous investigations; nor the self-possession with which, under circumstances of imminent danger, he could exert all the powers of a mind replete with knowlege and a love of truth *.

Having observed thus summarily on the importance and merits of these volumes, we presume that a concise analysis, and some of the author's details in series, may be more acceptable to readers of general curiosity, than an attempt to controvert or to establish his axioms of mineralogical study.

The first visit was made by the Abbate in the summer of 1788 to Mount Vesuvius; where he found Wedgewood's

For the former works of this respectable naturalist, see the General Index to the Old Series of the M. R. from 1749 to 1789; both inclusive.

pyrometer

pyrometer the most efficacious instrument in ascertaining the nature of the Lava. On the 4th of November, he passed the night at the Hermitage del Salvatore, about two miles from the summit of the mountain.

I rose,' says he, four hours before day, and continued my journey towards the burning crater, from which, as I have before said, flames arose at intervals, which on a nearer approach appeared larger and more vivid; and every ejection was followed by a detonation, more or less loud, according to the quantity of burning matter ejected: a circumstance I did not notice before, on account of the distance, but which became more perceptible to the ear in proportion as I approached the mouth of the volcano; and I observed, when I had arrived within half a mile of it, in a direct line, that the ejections preceded their accompanying explosions only by an instant, which is agreeable to the laws of the propagation of light and sound. this distance not only flames were visible to the eye, but a shower of igaited stones, which, in the stronger ejections, were thrown to a prodigious height, and thence fell on the declivities of the mountain, emitting a great quantity of vivid sparks, and bounding and rolling till they came within a short distance of the place where I stood. These stones, when I afterwards examined them, I found to be only particles of the lava, which had become solid in the air, and taken a globose form. These showers of lava appeared an invincible obstacle to my nearer approach to the volcanic furnace. I did not, however, lose all hope, being encouraged by the following observation. The showers of heated stones, I remarked, did not fall vertically, but all inclined a little to the west. I therefore removed to the east side of Vesuvius, where I could approach nearer to the burning mouth: but a wind suddenly springing up from the west, compelled me to remove, with no little regret, to a greater distance, as the smoke from the mouth of the crater, which before rose in a perpendicular column, was now drifted by the wind to the side on which I stood; so that I soon found myself enveloped in a cloud of smoke abounding with sulphureous vapours, and was obliged hastily to retire down the side of the mountain. Yet though I was thus disappointed of the pleasure of approaching nearer to the edge of the crater, and observing the eruptions more nearly and accurately, many instructive objects were not wanting.'

Concerning that great natural phænomenon, the course of the lava, he observes :

Pursuing my way to the south, along the declivity of the mountain, I arrived at the part where the lava ran above the ground. Where the stream was broadest, it was twenty two feet in breadth, and eighteen where narrowest. The length of this torrent was two miles, or nearly so. This stream of lava, when compared with others which have flowed from Vesuvius, and extended to the distance of five or six miles, with a proportionate breadth, must certainly suffer in the comparison; but considered in itself, and especially by a person unaccustomed to such scenes, it cannot but astonish and most power

fully

་

fully affect the mind. When I travelled in Switzerland, the impression made upon me by the Glacieres was, I confess, great; to see, in the midst of summer, immense mountains of ice and snow, placed on enormous rocks, and to find myself shake with cold, wrapped up in my pelisse on their frozen cliffs, while in the plain below Nature appeared languid with the extreme heat. But much more forcibly was I affected at the sight of this torrent of lava, which resembled a river of fire. It issued from an aperture excavated in the congealed lava, and took its course towards the south. For thirty or forty paces from its source, it had a red colour, but less ardent than that of the lava which flowed within the cavern I have mentioned above. Through this whole space its surface was filled with tumours which momentarily arose and disappeared. I was able to approach it to within the distance of ten feet; but the heat I felt was extremely great, and almost insupportable, when the air, put in motion, crossed the lava, and blew upon me. When I threw into the torrent pieces of the hardened lava, they left a very slight hollow trace. The sound they produced was like that of one stone striking against another; and they swam, following the motion of the stream. The torrent at first descended down an inclined plane which made an angle of about 45 degrees with the horizon, flowing at the rate of eighteen feet in a minute; but at about the distance of thirty or forty paces from its source, its superficies, cleared from the tumours I have before mentioned, shewed only large flakes of the substance of the lava, of an extremely dull red, which, clashing together, produced a confused sound, and were borne along by the current under them.

Observing these phenomena with attention, I perceived the cause of this diversity of appearance. The lava, when it issued from the subterranean caverns, began, from the impression of the cold air, to lose its fluidity, so that it yielded less to the stroke of solid bodies. The loss of this principle, however, was not such as to prevent the superficies from flowing. But at length it diminished by the increas ing induration; and then, the superficial part of the lava, by the unequal adhesion of its parts, was separated into flakes, which would have remained motionless had they not been borne away by the subjacent matter, which still remained fluid, on account of its not being exposed to the immediate action of the air, in the same manner as water carries on its surface floating flakes of ice.

Proceeding further, I perceived that the stream was covered, not only with these flakes, but with a great quantity of scoria; and the whole mass of these floating matters was carried away by the fluid lava, with unequal velocity, which was smail where the declivity was slight, but considerable when it was great. In one place, for ten or twelve feet, the descent was so steep that it differed little from a perpendicular. The lava must therefore be expected there to form a cataract. This it, in fact, did, and no sight could be more curious. When it arrived at the brow of this descent, it fell headlong, forming a large liquid sheet of a pale red, which dashed with a loud noise on the ground below, where the torrent continued its course as before.

• It

It appeared to me that it might be expected that, where the channel was narrow, the velocity of the torrent must be increased, and where it was capacious diminished; but I observed that, in proportion as it removed from its source, its progressive motion became slower and the reason for this is extremely obvious; since the current of melted matter being continually exposed to the cold air, must continually lose some portion of its heat, and, consequently, of its fluidity.

At length the lava, after having continued its course about two miles, along the declivity of the mountain, stopped, and formed a kind of small lake, but solid, at least on the superficies. Here the fery redness disappeared; but about two hundred feet higher it was still visible, and more apparent still nearer to its source. From the whole of this lake, strong sulphureous fumes arose, which were likewise to be observed at the sides, where the lava had ceased to flow, but still retained a considerable degree of heat.

After having written these observations on the lava ejected by Vesuvius, as it appeared from its source to its termination, which I made in company with Dr. Comi Abruzzese, a young student of great promise in medical and physical science, I had an opportunity to read the accounts of former eruptions, as they have been given by men of great abilities, who had observed them on the spot: I mean Dr. Serão, Father Della Torre, M. Deluc, and Sir William Hamilton. I perceive that, in the principal facts, the phenomena I have observed agree with their observations, and that the differences are but few. Thus the torrents of lava which they have described were accompanied with great fumes, and covered with pieces of lava and scoriæ. In like manner the liquid lava received but small impressions from the stroke of solid bodies, and sometimes none. Serao informs us, that the lava of 1737, when struck on the surface with long pointed staves, was found to be so hard that it resounded. According to the observation of Father Della Torre, the thick lava of the eruption of 1754, when raised with long poles, split into pieces. M. Deluc shewed me, some years since, in his private cabinet of Natural History, at Geneva, a piece of Vesuvian lava, of the eruption of 1758, marked with a slight impression, which he made on it, on the spot, while it retained its softness. If this naturalist should ever chance to come to Pavia, I could shew him, in return, in the public Imperial Museum, among the collection of volcanic productions which I have made, a cylinder of lava, 18 inches long, and 5 thick, which, in one part, has been bent to an angle, while it was half liquid, by the hands of the guide who accompanied me when I visited the eruption I have above described. In the eruption of 1766, likewise, though the lava flowed with surprising velocity, we are told, by Sir William Hamilton, that it received but a very slight impression from some large stones that he threw into it. Father. Della Torre has also remarked another phenomenon which I observed, and have described, relative to the effervescence and tumours of the fluid lava.

But my meeting with the subterranean cavity in which the lava flowed, was a fortunate and singular circumstance, which is not, that