M. Von Buch on Volcarios and Craters of Elevation. 193 



which destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii ; for the very accu- 

 rate Strabo gives a description of the mountain, which does not 

 nt all correspond with its present form, or with that it presented 

 at the time of any of the eruptions. He says : dempto vertice, 

 qui magna sui parte planus, totus sterilis est. Geog. lib. v, — a 

 mode of expression which cannot apply to a steep and sharp 

 cone like our Vesuvius. 



of the TifJUk 



VemviuSf or Somma, according to Strabo. 



Strabo would certainly not have omitted to mention the double 

 hill ; Spartacus would not have pitched a camp for ten thousand 

 gladiators in the small crater of the steep Vesuvius ; Pliny would 

 not have forgotten to enumerate in his list of volcanos a moun- 

 tain so like Stromboli as the present cone of Vesuvius, if it had 

 been in existence. 



Stnnma and Vesuvius after ike time of Pliny, 



Hamilton, however, was of opinion, that this cone had been 

 gradually produced by the continued eruptions of ashes and lavas. 

 Its height has, on the contrary, been constantly decreasing, and 

 will go on diminishing. It is extremely probable that Vesuvius 

 has become a true volcano by this elevation in the interior of the 

 crater of Somma, or in the interior of Strabo^s Vesuvius ; or that 

 it is only since that time that a permanent communication has been 

 opened with the atmosphere : for the Somma itself possesses so 

 perfectly all the characters of a crater of elevation, that we may 



