HOW WAS HERCULANEUM DESTROYED? 235 



and thrown out by the Dead Sea, saturated in it with chloride of 

 sodium? How is it that every thing proves their decomposition to 

 come only from the effects of time ? How has the wood kept its character 

 and color in those parts pierced by spikes and nails, in other words, 

 protected from dampness by iron rust ? How do we find manuscripts 

 written on the soft fibres of papyrus-reed, when lava must infallibly 

 have consumed them, and dispersed their ashes like those of a sheet of 

 paper thrown on burning coals ? Why has this kind lava, in like 

 manner, respected fruits, nuts, almonds, linen, silk, lamp-wicks found in 

 hundreds, and so many very combustible articles which have merely 

 turned black, when they usually vanish, without the least trace, in the 

 feeblest flame ? 



This refutation by absurdity might be urged with multiplied argu- 

 ments. Indeed, very slight reflection suffices to show that fire could 

 not have played any part in the destruction of Herculaneum, and that 

 if lava, the most terrible destroying agent next to lightning, had made 

 its way into the city, we should scarcely recognize a few blackened 

 stones, smashed bricks, and calcined marbles. But, to say all in a 

 word, I state that on a late tour I examined the ground of Herculane- 

 um, in the parts made accessible by excavation, with particular care. 

 I could not find a square inch of lava ! Every thing is ashes, nothing 

 but ashes, and these ashes have been hardened by three agents wa- 

 ter, pressure, and time. It> is exactly this hardness, which is not to be 

 conceived of as very great, that has deceived visitors, particularly in 

 the underground galleries dug out in exploring the theatre. The de- 

 scent is by stairways damp with exudations from the streets of Por- 

 tici ; overhead is heard the rolling of vehicles ; we pass through tun- 

 nels polished with rubbing ; we see on the smoky arches the smudge of 

 torches, collecting for centuries ; we shudder at the appalling gloom, 

 and seem buried in the bowels of the earth. In a word, the passage 

 impresses the imagination as strange and awful, and we reassure our- 

 selves perforce with the thought that these galleries are hewn in lava, 

 and beyond danger of caving in ; but a scratch of the nail on this 

 supposed lava betrays the fact that it is friable and yielding, being- 

 only hardened ashes. In one of these tunnels, which are pretty regu- 

 larly cut out, the guides show the print of a human face. We wonder 

 at the unchanging solidity of a substance which once so finely moulded 

 the objects it surrounded. Still, if you try to cut with a knife, not 

 into the impression itself, but into the parts next it, you are amazed to 

 find that nothing is easier, and that it is all mere solidified ashes. 



One street of Herculaneum, in the outskirts, on the side nearest the 

 sea, has been regularly excavated, and several houses cleared out 

 that called the house of the skeleton, the house of Argus, some shops, 

 a slave-prison, and others all is in the open air, and one can walk as 

 in the streets of Pompeii. The space thus disentombed is from 3,000 

 to 4,000 square yards, a large-enough area for observations of the 



