CHAPTER XLVII 



THE STOKY OF PLINY 



T 1 10 teach you what the cinders thrown up by a 

 A volcano can do, I am now going to tell you a 

 very old story, just as it was transmitted to us by a 

 celebrated writer of those old times. This writer 

 is called Pliny. His writing is in Latin, the great 

 language of those days. 



"It was in the year 79 of our era. Contempo- 

 raries of our Savior were still living. Vesuvius was 

 then a peaceful mountain. It was not terminated 

 then, as to-day, by a smoking cone, but by a table- 

 land slightly concave, the remains of an old filled-up 

 crater where thin grasses and wild vines grew. Very 

 fertile crops covered its sides ; two populous towns, 

 Herculaneum and Pompeii, lay stretched at its base. 



"The old volcano, which seemed forever lulled, 

 and whose last eruptions went back to times beyond 

 the memory of man, suddenly awakened and began 

 to smoke. On the 23d of August, about one o'clock 

 in the afternoon, an extraordinary cloud, sometimes 

 white, sometimes black, was seen hovering over Ve- 

 suvius. Impelled violently by some subterranean 

 force, it first rose straight up in the form of a tree- 

 trunk; then, after attaining a great height, it sank 

 down under its own weight and spread out over a 



wide area. 



210 



