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sulphureous smell . . . it has continued burning ever since
. . . the Heat was so great, and the sulphureous stench so
strong, that (though Pliny's Fate had not come into my
mind) I could not wait to be over curious.
From hence I descended obliquely to the Bottom of
the Cliff where I had a full View of it, and of the Progress
the Fire had made in it. It was entertaining to look up and
discern the different Figures into which the Fire had eat
it, and the Variety of beautiful Colours according to the
different Minerals and Stones it met with . . . The whole
face of the Cliff seemed to be a Composition of Red,
yellow, black and white calcined stones and ashes of clay
cemented together by Streams of melted Sulphur and
Copperas that run among them like the Cement that
Masons pour into Walls . . . I was informed by the inhab-
itants, that they see the Flame very plainly by Night, and
I could observe the Air over it in a tremulous Motion like
the Air over a burning Lime-kiln.²8
Volcanoes were now coming rapidly up the scientific agenda.
In a letter of 1781, otherwise about chemical retorts, Joseph
Priestley (1733-1804) discussed the nature of lava with his friend
Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795):
It is of some consequence to determine whether the lava
come out of the volcano in the stonelike state in which we
now find it, or acquires its present consistence and power
of yielding air afterwards. I hope to find this, and I can have
the use of a glass house fire for the purpose, of which I hope
to make good use, as well as of my own.²9
As a subject for study and observation, volcanoes were from
the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries led by science. It was
not until 1726 that James Thomson, in his long poem 'Winter'
from The Seasons , wrote of 'Hekla flaming through a waste of
snow'. Following where scientists were beginning to explore
were travelling artists. When Joseph Banks visited Iceland in
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