DOWN THE CRATER OF VESUVIUS.

Feilding Star, Volume XI, Issue 2463, 3 October 1914, Page 2

DOWN THE CRATER OF VESUVIUS.

That marvellous achievement with the cinema, which we read about some few months ago, of Mr Burlingham's sensational descent into the crater of Vesuvius, is to bo screened at the Lyceum on Monday and Tuesday next, with a special school matinee on j Tuesday at 3 p.m. The picture shows I the bay of Naples, Vesuvius smoking, tho ruins of the mountain top, tJie train of the funicular railway ascending the s£eep slope to the mountain top, the observatory, a view of the , dams, the British and Colonial caravan arriving at the top of Vesuvius, the ruins of the former terminal funicular station, battery of fuma» ! roles, entrance, of the Via Malladra, Vinoenzo Gaudina with the cotton umbrella, tied with a. string, tho descent, I'umaroles, with corrosive hydro-chloriu acid funics, a depth ol : i 1000 feet, on the floor oi' the crater, tho edge of tho funnel, Mr Burlnigham getting ready for the final descent down this funnel, on the edge of tho abyss (1212 feet down, the lowest point to wliicli man can descend j into Vesuvius, the temperature inside the abys being 1112 degrees Fain , .), . and a picture of Mr irederick BurI linffham. Mr Burlingham writes: j " There were some moments of supreme excitement! As tho cotton- ■ look ing smoke of I ho volcano rose .skyward, .forming ;i giant umbrella, far above the crater, wo descended into th« inferno ;is j'nr a.s human beings ever possibly ran go, and as the inenndewent, pink, hot smoke belched out of the heD-pit which goes dov/n two mileSj we went to the edge and looked in. At any moment we might j have been buried by an avalanche, I spattered by molten lava, or engulfed had the crater's floor disappeared -beneath our feet, und yet we. worked on with the khiematogrnph to record this appalling -wonder oT nature., ;md after ; four hours in the abyss, during which our lives were iti periJ, we succeeded in fighting our way back with the apparatus to safely, with a. film which .scientists may sen sitting comfortably in an armchair, ;uid scenes which not. one '-erson out of a million will over witness except on the screen. Such work is its own compensation, even if one risks his life to accomplish it."