Dr Daiibenv on the Spring- at Torre del Annunziata. 225 



It has been conjectured that the houses discovered may be 

 the remains of a place called Oplonti, mentioned in the Tabula 

 Theodosiana, as situated between Herculaneum and Pompeii, 

 six Roman miles from the former, and three from the latter, 

 which agrees pretty well with the present site of Torre del An- 

 nunciata. 



Others, on the contrary, are more inclined to suppose, that, 

 inasmuch as in the course of the excavations a well was disco- 

 vered of the same kind of water as that of the new mineral 

 spring, which appears, from the pillars that support it, to kave 

 been constructed by the Romans, the buildings disinterred so 

 immediately in its neighbourhood may have been erected for 

 the accommodation of persons who resorted to it for its medi- 

 cinal virtues. 



These two opinions, however, may perhaps be reconciled by 

 reference to the ancient manuscript referred to under the name 

 of the Tabula Theodosiana. It will there be found, that to 

 the name Oplonti is attached the drawing of a quadrangular 

 building, and that on other parts of the same map, where a si- 

 milarly shaped edifice is delineated, a thermal spring (Thermae) 

 is implied to have existed on the site. Oplonti, therefore, 

 whatever may have been the size and character of the buildings 

 of which it consisted (and of this the excavations now proceed- 

 ing will ere long inform us), appears to have been connected 

 with the thermal spring which existed there in the time of the 

 Romans, and which has been rediscovered recently. 



It is the date, however, of the eruption, and not the charac- 

 ter or designation of the buildings overwhelmed by it, which in- 

 terests us as geologists ; and, respecting the former point, little 

 hesitation, I conceive, need be entertained, in the identification 

 of it with the great eruption of 79, which destroyed so many 

 important cities in Campania. 



Nevertheless, although the lower strata exposed by the section 

 of the cliff were in all probability formed at the period just 

 mentioned, the same could scarcely have been the case with 

 those superincumbent. 



The occurrence of a pine at the height of twenty-five feet, of 

 stems of reeds at twenty-seven, ar.d, according to Mr Auldjo, 

 of a cypress at twentv-cight feet above the level of the sea (the 



