586 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1755. 



XXIll, On the Boohs and Ancient Writings dug out of the Ruins of an Edifice 

 near the Scite of the old City of Herculaneum. Translated by John Locke, 

 Esq.F.R.S. p. 112. 



Within 1 years last past, in a chamber of a house, or more properly speaking, 

 of an ancient villa, in the middle of a garden, has been found a great quantity 

 of rolls, about a palm long, and round; which appeared like roots of wood, all 

 black, and seeming to be only of one piece. One of them falling on the ground, 

 it broke in the middle, and many letters were observed, by which it was first 

 known, that the rolls were of papyrus. The number of these rolls, were about 

 150, of different sizes. They were in wooden cases, which are so much burnt, 

 as are all the things made of wood, that they cannot be recovered. The rolls 

 however are hard, though each appears like one piece. The king has caused in- 

 finite pains to be taken to unroll them, and read them ; but all attempts were in 

 vain; only by slitting some of them, some words were observed. At length 

 Sig. Assemani, being come a second time to Naples, proposed to the king to 

 send for one Father Antonio, a writer at the Vatican, as the only man in the 

 world, who could undertake this difficult affair. It is incredible to imagine what 

 this man contrived and executed. He made a machine, with which, by the 

 means of certain threads, which being gummed, stuck to the back part of the 

 papyrus, where there was no writing, he begins, by degrees, to pull, while with 

 a sort of engraver's instrument he loosens one leaf from the other, which is the 

 most difficult part of all, and then makes a sort of lining to the back of the 

 papyrus, with exceedingly thin leaves of onion, if I mistake not, and with some 

 spirituous liquor, with which he wets the papyrus, by little and little as he un- 

 folds it. All this labour cannot be well comprehended without seeing. With 

 patience superior to what a man can imagine, this good father has unrolled a 

 pretty large piece of papyrus, the worst preserved, by way of trial. It is found 

 to be the work of a Greek writer, and is a small philosophic tract, in Plutarch's 

 manner, on music; blaming it as pernicious to society, and productive of soft- 

 ness and effeminacy. It does not discourse of the art of music. The beginning 

 is wanting, but it is to be hoped, that the author's name may be found at the 

 end ; it seems however to be the work of a stoic philosopher ; because Zeno is 

 much commended. The papyrus is written across in so many columns, every 

 one of about 20 lines, and every line is the 3d of a palm long. Between co- 

 lumn and column is a void space of more than an inch. There are now unrolled 

 about 30 coiumns; which is about a half of the whole; this roll being one of 

 the smallest; the letters are distinguishable enough. Father Antonio, after he 

 has loosened a piece, takes it olF where there are no letters ; and places it be- 

 tween two crystals for the better observation; and then, having an admirable 

 talent in imitating characters, he copies it with all the lacunae, which are very 



