Masterpieces of Science 



there had been a sudden change from the Greek 

 to the Italian language in Campania. But if he 

 afterwards found three buried cities, one above 

 the other, the intermediate one being Roman, 

 while, as in the former example, the lowest was 

 Greek and the uppermost Italian, he would then 

 perceive the fallacy of his former opinion, and 

 would begin to suspect that the catastrophes, by 

 which the cities were inhumed, might have no 

 relation whatever to the fluctuations in the lan- 

 guage of the inhabitants ; and that, as the Roman 

 tongue had evidently intervened between the 

 Greek and Italian, so many other dialects may 

 have been spoken in succession, and the passage 

 from the Greek to the Italian may have been 

 very gradual, some terms growing obsolete, while 

 others were introduced from time to time. 



If this antiquary could have shown that the 

 volcanic paroxysms of Vesuvius were so governed 

 as that cities should be buried one above the other, 

 just as often as any variation occurred in the 

 language of the inhabitants, then, indeed, the 

 abrupt passage from a Greek to a Roman, and 

 froth a Roman to an Italian city, would afford 

 proof of fluctuations no less sudden in the lan- 

 guage of the people. 



So, in Geology, if we could assume that it is 

 part of the plan of Nature to preserve, in every 

 region of the globe, an unbroken series of monu- 

 ments to commemorate the vicissitudes of the 

 organic creation, we might infer the sudden ex- 

 tirpation of species, and the simultaneous intro- 

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