lexes, old and young, continually fmoke it, blowing out the fmoke through their noftrils. The first compliment offered to a stranger in their houses is a difh of tea and a pipe of tobacco. Their pipes have mouth-pieces and bowls of brafs or white copper. The hollow of the bowl is fo fmall as fcarce to contain an ordinary pea. The tobacco is cut as fine as a hair, about a finger's length, and is rolled up in fmall balls like pills, to fit the fmall hollow in the bowl of the pipe; which pills, as they can laft but for a few whiffs, must be very frequently renewed.

Fans are ufed by both fexes equally, and are, within or without doors, their infeparable companions.

The whole nation are naturally cleanly; every houfe, whether public or private, has a bath, of which conftant and daily ufe is made by the whole family.

You seldom meet a man who has not his mark imprinted on the fleeves and back of his cloaths, in the fame colour in which the pattern is printed; white spots are left in manufacturing them, for the purpose of inferting thefe marks.

Obedience to parents and refpect to fuperiors is the characteriftic of this nation: it is pleafing to fee the refpect with which in feriors treat thofe of high rank; if they meet them abroad, they ftop till they have paffed by; if in a house, they keep at a distance, bowing their heads to the ground. Their falutations and converfations between equals abound alfo with civility and politeness; to this children are early accuftomed by the example of their parents.

Their penal laws are very fe vere; but punishments are seldom inflicted. Perhaps there is no country where fewer crimes against fociety are committed.

Their ufage of names differs from that of all other nations, The family name is never madę use of but in figning folemn contracts, and the particular name by. which individuals are diftinguished in converfation varies according to the age or fituation of the perfon who makes use of it: fo that fometimes the fame person is, in his life time, known by five or fix different names.

They reckon their age by even years, not regarding whether they were born at the beginning or the end of a year, fo that a child is faid to be a year old on the new year's day next after his birth, even though he has not been born many days.

Commerce and manufactures flourish here, though, as these people have few wants, they are not carried to the extent which we fee in Europe. Agriculture is fo well understood, that the whole country, even to the tops of the hills, is cultivated. They trade with no foreigners but the Dutch and Chinefe, and in both cafes with companies of privileged merchants. The Dutch export copper and raw camphire, for which they give in return fugar, ripe cloves, Tappan wood, ivory, tin, lead, tortoife hell, chintzs, and a few trifles more.

As the Dutch company do not pay duty in Japan, either on their exports or imports, they send an annual prefent to the court, confifting of cloth, chintzs, fuccotas, cottons, ftuffs, and trinkets,

I had the fatisfaction to attend the ambassador, who was intrufted with these presents, on his journey to Jeddo, the capital of this vaft empire, fituated at an immenfe diftance from Nagasacci, a journey on which three Europeans only are permitted to go, attended by two hundred Japanese at least.

We left our little island of Dezima, and the town of Nagafacci, on the 4th of March, 1776, and travelled through Cocora to Simonofeki, where we arrived on the 12th, and found a veffel prepared for us; we embarked on board her, and coafted along to Fiogo. From thence we travelled by land to Ofacca, one of the principal commercial towns in the empire. At this place we remained the 8th and 9th of April, and on the 10th arrived at Miaco, the refidence of the Dairi, or ecclefiaftical emperor. Here we also ftayed two days; but after that made the best of our way to Jeddo, where we arrived on the ift of May.

We were carried by men in a kind of palankins, called norimons, covered, and provided with windows. The prefents alfo and our provifions were carried on men's fhoulders, except a few articles, which were loaded on pack-horfes. The Japanese offiThe Japanese officers who attended us provided us with every thing, fo that our journey was by no means troublefome.

On the 18th we had an audience of the cubo, or temporal emperor, of the heir-apparent, and of the twelve fenators; the day following, of the ecclefiaftical governors, the governors of the town, and other high officers. On the 23d we had our audience of leave. We left Jeddo on the 26th of May, and arrived at Miaco on the 7th of June. Here we had an audience of the emperor's viceroy, to whom we also made prefents, as we were not allowed to fee the dairi, or ecclefiaftical emperor. On the 11th we procured leave to walk about the town, and vifit the temples and principal buildings. In the evening we set out for Ofacca, which town we were alfo permitted to view, which we did on the 13th.

We faw temples, theatres, and many curious buildings; but, above all, the manufactory of copper, which is melted here, and no where else in the empire.

On the 14th we had an audience of the governors of this town; after which we refumed our journey to Fiogo, where we again embarked on the 18th, and proceeded by fea to Simonofeki, from whence we arrived on the 23d at Cocota, and from thence were carried in norimons to Nagafacci, and arrived at our little ifland Dezima on the last day of June, after an abfence of one hundred and eighteen days.

An Account of the Eruption of Mount Vefuvius, which happened in August 1779. From Sir William Hamilton's Letter to Mr. Banks, P.R.S.

Naples, O. 1, 1779. HE late eruption of Mount Vefuvius was of fo fingular a nature, so very violent and alarm ing, that it neceffarily attracted the attention of every one, not only in its immediate neighbourhood, but for many miles around; and, confequently, feveral flight defcriptions of it have been already handed about, and fome (as I am informed) more accurate and circumftantial are preparing for the press *.

That on which the Abbot Bottis is actually employed, by command of his Sicilian majefty, will undoubtedly be executed with the fame accuracy, truth, and precifion, as have rendered that author's former publications upon the fubject of Mount Vefuyius fo univerfally and deservedly esteemed.

Such a publication, executed with magnificence in the royal printing-office, may, perhaps, render every other account of the late eruption fuperfluous: nevertheless,

I should think myself in some degree guilty of a neglect towards the Royal Society, who have done fo much honour to my former communications, if I did not, through the refpectable canal of its worthy prefident, and my good friend, fimply relate to them fuch remark. able circumstances as attended the late tremendous explofions of Mount Vefuvius, and as either came immediately under my own infpection, or have been related to me by fuch good authority as cannot be called in queftion.

Since the great eruption of 1767, of which I had the honour of giv ing a particular account to the Roy al Society, Vefuvius has never been free from fmoke, nor ever many months without throwing up redhot fcoriæ, which increafing to a certain degree, were ufually followed by a current of liquid lava, and except in the eruption of 1777, thofe lavas broke out nearly from the fame spot, and ran much in the fame direction, as that of the famous eruption of 1767.

No lefs than nine fuch eruptions are recorded here fince the great. one above-mentioned, and fome

of

of them were confiderable. I never failed visiting thofe lavas whilft they were in full force, and as conftantly examined them and the crater of the volcano after the ceafing of each eruption.

It would be but a repetition of what has been defcribed in my former letters on this fubject, were I to relate my remarks on those different expeditions. The lavas, when they either boiled over the crater, or broke out from the conical parts of the volcano, conftantly formed channels as regular as if they had been cut by art down the fteep part of the mountain, and, whilt in a ftate of perfect fufion, continued their course in those channels, which were fometimes full to the brim, and at other times more or less fo, according to the quantity of matter in motion.

These channels, upon examination after an eruption, I have found to be in general from two to five or fix feet wide, and feven or eight feet deep. They were often hid from the fight by a quantity of fcoria that had formed a cruft over them, and the lava having been conveyed in a covered way for fome yards, came out fresh again into an open channel, After an eruption I have walked in fome of thofe fubterraneous or covered galleries, which were exceedingly curious,

the fides, top, and bottom, being worn perfectly smooth and even in most parts by the violence of the currents of the red-hot lavas, which they had conveyed for many weeks fucceffively; in others, the lava had incrufted the fides of those channels with some very extraor dinary scoriæ: beautifully ramified white faltst, in the form of dropping stalactites, were also attached to many parts of the ceiling of thofe galleries. It is imagined here, that the falts of Vefuvius are chiefly ammoniac, though often tinged with green, deep, or pale yellow, by the vapour of various minerals.

In the month of May laft, there was a confiderable eruption of Mount Vesuvius, when i paffed a night on the mountain in the company of one of my countrymen, as eager as myself in the pursuit of this branch of natural history .

We faw the operation of the lava, in the channels as abovementioned, in the greatest perfection; but it was, indeed, owing to our perfeverance, and fome degree of refolution. After the lava, had quitted its regular channels, it fpread itself in the valley, and, being loaded with fcoriæ, ran gently on, like a river that had been frozen, and had maffes of ice floating on it: the wind changing

Mr. Bowdler, of Bath

when

when we were clofe to this gentle ftream of lava, which might be about fifty or fixty feet in breadth, incommoded us fo much with its heat and smoke, that we must have returned without having fatisfied our curiofity, had not our guide propofed the expedient of walking acrofs it, which, to our aftonifh ment, he inftantly put in execution, and with fo little difficulty, that we followed him without hefitation, having felt no other inconveniency than what proceeded from the violence of the heat on our legs and feet; the cruft of the lava was fo tough, befides being loaded with cinders and fcoriæ, that our weight made not the leaft impreffion on it; and its motion was fo flow, that we were not in any danger of lofing our balance, and falling on it: however, this experiment fhould not be tried, except in cafes of real neceffity; and I mention it with no other view than to point out a poffibility of escaping, fhould any one hereafter, upon fuch an expedition as ours, have the misfortune to be inclosed between two currents of lavá.

of an artificial firework, and by the continual fplashing up of the vitrified matter, a kind of arch or dome was formed over the crevice from whence the lava iffued. It was cracked in many parts, and appeared red-hot within, like an heated oven: this hollowed hillock might be about fifteen feet high, and the lava that ran from under it was received into a regular channel, raifed upon a fort of wall of fcoriæ and cinders, almoft perpendicularly, of about the height of eight or ten feet; refembling much an ancient aqueduct.

We then went up to the crater of the volcano, in which we found, as ufual, a little mountain throwing fcoriæ and red-hot matter with loud explosions; but the fmoke and fmell of fulphur was fo intolerable, that we were under the neceffity of quitting that curious fpot with the utmost precipitation.

In another of my excurfions to Mount Vefuvius laft year, I picked up fome fragments of large and regular cryftals of clofe-grained lava or bafalt, the diameter of which, when the prifms were complete, may have been eight or nine inches. As Vefuvius does not exhibit any lavas regularly cryftallized, and forming what are vulgarly called giants caufeways (except a lava that ran into the fea near Torre del Greco in 1631, and which in fmall degree has fuch an appearance), this discovery gave me the greatest pleasure t.

After

already