196 Miscellanies. 



The jet of water, which at first was raised fourteen feet and two- 

 thirds, has gradually subsided to eight feet. Its force is now so great 

 that it brings up with it not only small pebbles, but fragments of lava, 

 and tufa, one of the pieces of lava weighed two livres. In blasting 

 the tufa for the establishment of baths, and other accommodations, 

 the trunk of a cypress was discovered, still standing, charred upon the 

 outside, but the interior was perfectly preserved. Its circumference 

 was five feet and one third and height three feet and one third. It stood 

 in a thin bed of vegetable earth, covered by different beds of volcanic 

 tufa, was twenty feet and two thirds below the level of the sea, twen- 

 ly-six. feet and two-thirds below the surface of the ground, and five 

 feet and one third below the formed upper surface of the tufa. 



This cypress, from its diameter, must have been at least an hun- 

 dred years old at the time it was enclosed in the surrounding mass, 

 which, in its nature and stratification, so much resembles that which 

 covers Herculaneum, that it may with reason be supposed to be of 

 the same epoch, or rather to be a part of the products of the eruption, 

 which entombed the country south of the foot of Vesuvius, in a shower 

 of volcanic substances. In the same bed with the cypress were found 

 great numbers of snails (helix nemorata and h. decollata;) also frag- 

 ments of tiles and of pottery, undoubtedly of Roman origin, and 

 like those found at Pompeii and Herculaneum. 



It is remarkable, that the outer part of the cypress is carbonized 

 and the interior is uninjured, while at Pompeii and Herculaneum, 

 <even the large timbers are charred through the whole mass. 



This is probably owing to the cypress being in full vegetation when 

 it was enveloped, and thus it is able to resist the heat of the lava, 

 which is sufficient to carbonize only dead wood. — Bib. Univ. Mars, 

 1833. 



12. Descent in diving hells. — The Rev. Mr.. Alden's account of 

 descents in a diving bell, (Am. Journal for July, 1832,) is translated 

 into the Bibliotheque Universelle, and the translator, in a note, attri- 

 butes the cure of Mr. Clifford's rheumatism to the great heat pro- 

 duced in the bell, and which is like a (steam?) vapor bath, and says 

 that his twelve descents were almost equal to taking as many warm 

 baths in the waters of Aix or Barrege. The translator once de- 

 scended twenty five feet at Bordeaux, in a bell, with four other per- 

 sons, and the heat of their lamp, with that of respiration and that 

 evolved by compression of the air, raised the thermometer, in three 

 quarters of an hour, from 15° to 32° R. 



