1854.] 



VESUVIUS AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. 



263 



Passing through Puteoli towards the east, you come out on a 

 noticeable stripe of land between the precipitous cliff and the sea. 

 By the marine deposits here found, mingled with the remains of 

 human workmanship, it appears that this stripe, like the shore 

 westward of Puteoli, has been successively depressed and ele- 

 vated. On the sides of the cliff, 35 feet above the present sea 

 level, the borings of lithodomi may be observed, and on the sum- 

 mit of the cliff are substructions of villas which once overhung 

 the sea. 



As you leave this narrow stripe, the road by which you travel 

 passes through a massive stream of solid lava, which, in prehis- 

 toric times, flowed down from the Solfatara already visited, and 

 here entered the sea in a stream one-fourth of a mile in breadth, 

 and seventy feet in thickness. 



You pass, also, on the left, some stone quarries, in which, ex- 

 posed to the hottest rays of the sun, you see — for the first time 

 perhaps, in your life — unfortunate human beings working in iron 

 fetters. Alas! that the clank of those deo-radino- links should be 

 associated for ever in the recollections of any one with the name 

 of Italy ! — The labourers in the stone quarries of Epipola? — ■ 

 whom, perhaps, your imagination may summon up — were more 

 happy. The fortune of war had placed them there. But what 

 is it that, in the Neapolitan states, according to the testimony of 

 Mr. Gladstone, causes men, and perhaps some of these, to be thus 

 condemned to chains ? 



Proceeding by the coast road homewards towards Naples, you 

 remark, to the westward of the heights of Posilipo, a few hundred 

 yards from the shore, a small island. This is Nisida, the last 

 volcanic object in the neighbourhood of Vesuvius, which we have 

 to notice. It is a cone with an extinct crater, into which, on the 

 south side, the sea finds an entrance by a breach in the rim. A 

 convenient little harbour is thus formed. — You may gaze on the 

 island of Nisida with interest, for several historical reasons. Here 

 Lucullus, the celebrated conqueror of Mithridates, possessed a 

 villa, which, a few years after his death, became remarkable as 

 being the place to which Marcus Junius Brutus retired after par- 

 ticipating in the assassination of Caesar, and where he left his 

 Portia, the daughter of Cato, when he departed for Greece, des- 

 tined never to return. It was here, too, that the interview took 

 place between him and Cicero, of which the latter has left a 

 graphic account, wherein the orator declares that he found the 

 patriot "nihil nisi de pace et concordia civium cogitantem." In 

 yonder little volcanic isle we have, then, a memento of the final 

 but unsuccessful struggle for Roman liberty. We, curiously 

 enough, have before us in the same object the scene of the 

 extinction of the Western empire itself in the person of its 

 last chief. 7— In exile here, a pensioner on the generosity of Odo- 

 acer, the first king of Italy, lived and died the son of Orestes, 

 Ptomulus Augustulus, the closing member of that series of puppets 

 who, from a.d. 455 to 476, rilled the throne and brought contempt 

 upon the name of the Emperors of the West. 



Since the great explosion of Vesuvius in a.d. 79, the craters 

 of the Phlegrasan fields appear to have become for the most part 

 quiescent. The interruptions of their repose have been three, 

 already noticed in passing: one in 1198, when the Solfatara 

 emitted a stream of lava; one in 1302, when Epomeo, in Ischia, 

 did ■ the same; the third in 1538, when Monte Nuovo was 

 thrown up. 



The intervals which have occurred between the fifty-two erup- 

 tions of Vesuvius, since that of a.d. 79, 1 make out to be respec- 

 tively the following— 124 (years), 269, 40,308, 43, 13, 90, 167, 



1 94,131, 29, 22,12, 2, 2, 3, 6, 5, 5, 3, 8, 2. 7, 14, 3, 4, 2, 6, 1, 

 3, 6, 3, 5. 2, 1, 6, 10, 1, 4, 3, 1, 4, 3, 2, 6, 3, 3, 4, 6, 2, 3 (1850). 



In the earlier portion of the Christian era, some eruptions may 

 not have been recorded. The generations of men who couid 

 forget the sites of considerable cities may have neglected to re- 

 cord the activity of a volcano. If there have been no omissions, 

 the eruptions of Vesuvius appear to have become more frequent 

 since the year 1631. — It has also been observed that there is a 

 degree of alternation between the movemen ts of Etna and Vesuvius. 

 In no instance have, the two mountains been in active eruption 

 simultaneously. Hence they appear to be escape-valves to one 

 connected mass of igneous matter — the upward pressure of the 

 elastic gases with which it is charged finding relief by the one, 

 when the other is obstructed. 



While standing on the summit of Vesuvius, and contemplating 

 the enormous column of steam which isgenerallyintheactot being- 

 blown off, one is inclined to rush to the conclusion that the molten 

 rock which overspreads the surrounding scene far and wide, has 

 been shot up by nothing more or less than the familiar force 

 which, with such irresistible power, lifts the piston. But further 

 reflection induces a correction of this opinion. It is likely that 

 the steam is simply produced by the infiltration of sea-water on 

 the heated mass within the base of the mountain. 



When we consider the fact that the ground on which we 

 tread is but the surface of a rind, — that by experiment this rind 

 increases 1° Fahrenheit in temperature for every fifty-four feet 

 of vertical depth, — that at the depth of twenty miles granite must 

 be in a state of fusion — we cannot fail to see that it is probable 

 that the seat of all volcanic energy is in some common central 

 igneous mass with which all the volcanic vents more or less Com- 

 municate; and that these vents are very possibly established 

 and maintained in order that the globe may not one day fly to 

 pieces like a Rupert's drop. 



But what is it that determines the moment when those fierce 

 ebullitions must occur which ruffle the surface of the Phlegethon 

 below, and cause its molten waves to rise on high, and so rudely 

 flout the roofs of the cavernous crypts over which men dwell, 

 shaking them and their structures, " massy-proof," from their 

 propriety ? What generates those expansive gases whose excess 

 from time to time thrusts up before them the fiery fluid through 

 which they seek to force their way ? 



These are queries which remain unresolved. Like the storms 

 which observers notice, but cannot explain, in the magnetic 

 world — these movements in the inner abysses of the earth must 

 still, for the present, be classed as mysteries. 



We doubtless here have glimpses of the forces, whatever they 

 are, which, in the old foretime of our planet's history, burst apart 

 the primitive crust; which tilted its strata in divers directions, 

 as the uneasy polar sea bursts up its ice; which exposed huge 

 sections of those strata with their contents, to the view, the use, 

 and the delight of men ; superinducing, apparently, at first, a scene 

 of ruin, — harsh, sharp, bare, and confused; a scene, however, 

 which resolved itself at last into what we now call mountain, hill, 

 and vale ; interspersed with river, cataract, lake, and sea ; softened 

 in outline by abrasion and disintegration, by slopes of alluvion 

 and surfaces of mould, and coloured warmly over by mosses, 

 lichens, herbage, and woods, and blue etherial haze. 



But though the seat of volcanic energy be at the core of the 

 globe, and its force, as is most probable, supplied by chemical 

 agency operating there on an enormous scale — may it not be 



