According to the latest telegraphic news from Naples, dated Thursday,
Vesuvius is still very unpleasantly active, and the flow -of lava is accompanied by shocks of earthquake. A few days before, on the 5th January (Sunday), M. Renter's agenttelegmphed that the eruption was "assuming alarming proportions," and the flow of lava, passing beyond the central cone, had divided into two branches, one threatening the village of Resina, the southern branch that of Torre del Greco. On Thursday the lava was still "accumulating in the direction of Torre del Greco,"— so it is, at all events, taking its time. A correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette of Thursday, Mr. Groves, who has recently (but not so recently) been at Naples, is rather disrespectful to the eruption altogether, and thinks evidently that the Neapolitans make the most of their little monopoly in lava. The eruption, Mr. Groves says, had, in the middle of last month, pushed up a smaller cone out of the crater of the big cone, and through the sides of this small cone the lava and flame oozed out, now in one direction, now in another. But there was nothing there, he said, to prevent travellers from getting up very near to the top of the greater cone, "so as to stand in the very glare of the eruption," as he had done. It was easy to avoid the red-hot stones, as they fell only within well defined limits. It may be much worse now, but Mr. Groves evidently doubts it. He evidently appreciates the pride people take in the property of a special peril.
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