Vesuvius Firing Up

Vesuvius has every appearance of firing up for another eruption. Smoke is constantly issuing from the cráter, and occasionally in immense volumes, that overspread the atmosphere like a sable pall. The otlier day a dense black cloud that had gathered about the cráter was suddenly driven over Pompeii. Ashes and einders feil in a thick shower, and for a time it lookod as if themidday darkuess that attended the eruption which overwhelmed Pompeii and Herculaneum was to be renewed, and the partially disentombed city was to be buried up again. I thought of the fate of Diomed's family, smothered to death in the wine cellar, where they sought refuge. When the cloud dïifted over, the pavements of Pompeii were covered with a thin layer of hot volcanic ashes and minute Bcorïse. I asked the director of estcavations if Pompeii might not be coveied up again. "That dependa on the dura ti on of an eruption of Vesuvius," h; said, "and its character. Shouldit break forth on the eastern side of the mountain, eject masses of scorise, voloanic ashee, and showers of boiling water, the effect would be as disastrous as in the 79th year of the Christian era, when Herculaneum was covered up by a strata of volcanic matter sixty feet deep, and Pompeii and Stabia and other cities were entonibed beneath heaps of mud and volcanic deposits." Vesuvius is the most uncertain of volcanoes. Prior to A. D. 79, it had slumbered for centuries. Since then it has been more or less active, with spasmodic intervals of tremendous fury and desolation. Pompeii is more than onehalf excavated, but much remains to be done before this old Greek city will again be entirely laid open to view