8 Trans. Acad. Sct. of St. Louis. 
the attention of King Charles III of Naples. He ordered 
excavations to be made, similar to those which had already 
been made in Herculaneum, and since that time those mar- 
velous statues, bronzes, and beautiful wall-paintings have been 
collected, and now form the great attraction of the National | 
Museum at Naples.* 
Besides the large statues there are thousands of small 
household articles such as vases, lamps, mirrors in bronze, 
and others. A new era in art, especially of art in con- 
nection with industry, began, and the most common things. 
of daily life were refined in their forms, in taking the 
Pompeiian ones as models. 
Many seeds and fruits all in a charred state were also found. 
However, the plants in the wall-paintings drew more atten- 
tion, and in 1851 the Danish botanist and plant geographer, 
Schouw, published a popular article concerning them, also 
including some of the seeds. In his book, ‘‘ Die Erde, die 
Pflanze und der Mensch,’’ Leipzig, 1851,German edition by H. 
Zeise, Schouw enumerates the following plants from the wall- 
paintings: Pine-nuts, cypress, Pinus halepensis, oleander, 
ivy, date-palm, dwarf-palm (Chamaerops humilis), barley, 
millet, asparagus, onions, radishes, turnips (rapes), figs, 
pears, apples, cherries, almonds, plums, peaches, granates, 
medlars. 
Of the seeds found in the excavations, Schouw names sweet 
pine-kernels, wheat, barley, broad-beans ( Vicia Faba) and a 
glass with preserved olives, which he relates had retained 
their flavor when they were dug out. I have seen perhaps 
the same olives, which are now in glass tubes, preserved, I 
believe, in oil. : 
But Schouw points out that there are many plants lacking, 
which now form the typical character of the Flora of Italy. 
Such are, besides the white mulberry, Morus alba, now used 
as food for the silkworm, all species of the genus Citrus, the 
lemons, the grape-fruits, the citron, a thick shelled lemon, 
* There is now also a fine representation of an ancient room from 
Bosco Reale, near Pompeii, in the Metropolitan Museum of Arts and Science 
in New York. 
