134 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



as it were, out of a quarry of lava, were all, like those 

 found with the Egyptian mummies, in compressed 

 rolls. A gentleman, who had frequent opportunities 

 of examining them, has given the following descrip- 

 tion of them : " The ancients did not shape and bind 

 their books like us, but rolled them up in scrolls. 

 When these of Herculaneum were discovered, they 

 presented, as they still do, the appearance of burnt 

 sticks or cylindrical pieces of charcoal, which they 

 had acquired from the action of the heat contained in 

 the lava that buried the whole city. They seem 

 quite solid both to the eye and touch, yet an ingenious 

 monk discovered a process of detaching leaf from 

 leaf and unrolling them, by which they could be 

 read without much difficulty. When these manu- 

 scripts were first exposed to the air, a considerable 

 number of them crumbled to dust. Our countryman, 

 the late Sir Humphrey Davy, destroyed the integrity 

 of a few by making unsuccessful experiments, which 

 he fancied might produce a result that would super- 

 sede the slow and laborious process now adopted ; 

 but about eighteen hundred still remain. Four of 

 them have been unrolled, and fac-similes of them, 

 with translations, published by the Neapolitan govern- 

 ment *." 



The same gentleman has just favoured us with the 

 following description of the papyrus as he found it 

 growing near Syracuse in Sicily, the only place in 

 Europe where the beautiful plant flourishes in its 

 natural state. 



" The river Anapus, after flowing through an 

 alluvial plain, which requires draining as much as 

 any place I ever saw, being in many parts swampy 

 and emitting the most unhealthy miasmata, falls 

 into the sea at the west side of the magnificent har- 

 bour of Syracuse. We ascended the river for some 

 * Ptnny Magazine, No. 35, 



