050 



PAPYKI POUND IN 



[Ch. XXV. 



evidently prepared to be cut into pills. By the side of these 



medicinal 



moist 



were found in a square glass-case, and ' caviare,' or roe of a 

 fish, in a state of wonderful preservation. An examination 

 of these curious condiments has been published by Covelli 



hermetically 



museum 



Papyri. — There is a marked difference in the condition and 

 appearance of the animal and vegetable substances found at 

 Pompeii and Herculaneum; those of Pompeii being pene- 

 trated by a grey pulverulent tuff, those in Herculaneum seem- 

 ing to have been first enveloped by a paste which consolidated 

 round them, and then allowed them to become slowly carbon- 

 ised. Some of the rolls of papyrus at Pompeii still retain their 

 form ; but the writing, and indeed almost all the vegetable 

 matter, appear to have vanished, and to have been replaced 

 by volcanic tuff somewhat pulverulent. At Herculaneum the 

 earthy matter has scarcely ever penetrated ; and the vegetable 

 substance of the papyrus has become a thin friable black 

 matter, almost resembling in appearance the tinder which 

 remains when stiff paper has been burnt, in which the letters 



may still be sometimes traced. The small bundles of papyri, 

 composed of five or six rolls tied up together, had sometimes 

 lain horizontally, and were pressed in that direction, but 

 sometimes they had been placed in a vertical position. Small 

 tickets were attached to each bundle, on which the title of 

 the work was inscribed. In one case only have the sheets 



So 



numerous are the obliterations and corrections, that many 

 must have been original manuscripts. The variety of hand- 

 writings is quite extraordinary: nearly all are written in 

 Greek, but there are a few in Latin. They were almost all 

 found in a suburban villa in the library of one private indi- 

 vidual ; and the titles of four hundred of those least injured, 

 which have been read, are found to be unimportant works, 

 but all entirely new, chiefly relating to music, rhetoric, and 

 cookery. There are two volumes of Epicurus * On Nature,' 

 and the others are mostly by writers of the same school, only 



* Prof. J. D. Forbes, Edin. Journ. of Sci., No. xix. p. 130. Jan. 1829. 



been found with writing on both sides of the pages. 





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