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or river, or body of water whatsoever, struck me, at first glance, as
the most extraordinary feature in its geological condition. Yet, strange
to say, I beheld vast level regions of a character decidedly alluvial,
although by far the greater portion of the hemisphere in sight was
covered with innumerable volcanic mountains, conical in shape, and
having more the appearance of artificial than of natural protuberance.
The highest among them does not exceed three and three-quarter miles
in perpendicular elevation; but a map of the volcanic districts of the
Campi Phlegraei would afford to your Excellencies a better idea of their
general surface than any unworthy description I might think proper to
attempt. The greater part of them were in a state of evident eruption,
and gave me fearfully to understand their fury and their power, by the
repeated thunders of the miscalled meteoric stones, which now rushed
upward by the balloon with a frequency more and more appalling.
"
April 18th. To-day I found an enormous increase in the moon's apparent
bulk--and the evidently accelerated velocity of my descent began to fill
me with alarm. It will be remembered, that, in the earliest stage of
my speculations upon the possibility of a passage to the moon, the
existence, in its vicinity, of an atmosphere, dense in proportion to the
bulk of the planet, had entered largely into my calculations; this too
in spite of many theories to the contrary, and, it may be added, in
spite of a general disbelief in the existence of any lunar atmosphere at
all. But, in addition to what I have already urged in regard to Encke's
comet and the zodiacal light, I had been strengthened in my opinion by
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