SMALLER CATASTROPHES AND UN'IFORMITARL\NTSM 15 



eruption of \>suvius destroyed no more than three cities, Hercula- 

 neum, Pompei and Stabiae, all situated on its southwestern flank. 

 No more than a quarter of the surface of a single volcano was 

 affected by this eruption. The rest of Roman Empire lived on, I will 

 not say happily, but still without any interruption. Had not Pliny 

 the Younger lost his uncle in the event, it is veiy much to be doubted 

 if we would have such a detailed account, even of this major erup- 

 tion. 



So, a flood here, a quake there, with a volcanic eruption thrown 

 in, this is all compatible with uniformitarianism. Such smaller catas- 

 trophes result from actual processes at work on earth. They do not 

 reach a global scale. 



I believe that to drive home this local character of human catas- 

 trophes, both in areal extent and in time, we can best return to the 

 text of Lyell's Principles. In the closing remarks of his first volume, 

 following a description of the ravages from volcanic activity in the 

 Naples district, we read: *The signs of changes imprinted on it during 

 this period may appear in after-ages to indicate a series of un- 

 parallelled disasters ... If they who study these phenomena . . . con- 

 sider the numerous proofs of reiterated catastrophes to which the 

 region was subject, they might, perhaps, commiserate the unhappy 

 state of beings condemned to inhabit a planet during its nascent and 

 chaotic state, and feel grateful that their favoured race has escaped 

 such scenes of anarchy and misrule'. 



However, pursuing Lyell's narrative, we read: 'What was the real 

 condition of Campania [Napolitana] during those years of dire con- 

 clusion? "A climate", says Forsyth, "where Heaven's breath smells 

 sweet and wooingly — a vigorous and luxuriant nature unparalleled 

 in its productions — a coast which was once the fairy-land of poets, 

 and the favourite retreat of great men. Even the tyrants of the crea- 

 tion loved this alluring region, spared it, adorned it, lived in it, died 

 in it." The inhabitants, indeed, have enjoyed no immunity from the 

 calamities which are the lot of mankind; but the principal evils 

 which they have suffered must be attributed to moral, not to physical, 

 causes — to disastrous events over which man might have exercised 

 a control, rather than to the inevitable catastrophes which result 

 from subterranean agency. When Spartacus encamped his army of 

 ten thousand gladiators in the old extinct crater of Vesuvius, the 



