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LIFE'OF COLONEL MACERONI.

one alive. By tliis method carp, teach, pike, roach, orbream, may be conveyed not only twenty miles, but ahundred or more, whilst, if we were to take them in a caskof water, not one would live.

While fishing one day in the lake of Astroni, I had anarrow escape of being killed by electrical discharges. Asudden thunder storm came on, and not more than fiftyyards before me a stream of lightning arose from out of thewater which it threw up in a column to such a height as tocover me entirely when it fell. The shock upon my nerveswas very violent, so, being moreover drenched to the skin,I packed up my tackle and began to ascend the hill, atthe top of which is the entrance to the place. But I hadnot gone far when another electric discharge descendedon a great oak tree just before me and shivered off abranch as big as my body, which fell just across my path.Instances of ascending lightning are not very common;but I shall have occasion to mention several such interestingexhibitions at a future period of my history.

Towards the close of 1811, I returned to Rome for thepurpose of receiving some money that was left me by arelation, Monsignor Acciajoli, of Florence, and to takepossession of a house and eighty acres of land at CastelGandolfo , on the lake of Albano. On this occasion I madean excursion into the Abruzzi, and visited the lake Fucino ,celebrated for the attempts that have been made to drainaway its waters which are continually on the increase, andevery year encroach more and more on the beautiful fertileplain, that must end by being entirely submerged, unless anexit be formed for the waters into the little river Liri, whichflows into the Garigliano . The lake is nearly circular, aboutthirty miles J n circumference, but does not yet by anymeans fill the entire plain of table-land it appears destinedone day to inundate. Four streams fall into it, which on