OF MONTE SOMMA AND VESUVIUS. 87 
glass and fresco, some tiles, &c. These were submitted to my arche- 
ological friend 8. Stevens, Esq., of Naples, who pronounces them to 
belong to a period ranging back at least a century before the Chris- 
Fig. 1.—Section exhibited in the North Bank of the Lagno di 
Trocchia, Mt. Somma. 
S ies 
x Ld 
LY) aE 
RG. i) 
Cy} SWZ 
a. Vegetable soil. 
6. Alluvial breccia. 
e. Black pumiceous scoria. Puasr VII., Period 4. 
d. Alluvium. 
é. Alluvium with potsherds, fragments of glass, tiles, &c. 
J. Spongy grey pumice. Puass VI., Period 2. 
g. Walls of an old Roman house. 
tian era. Naturally such débris can carry no accurate date with 
them, yet amongst the fragments collected was a piece of a “‘ dolium,” 
or oil-jar, bearing an early inscription which seems to show a farm- 
house, built about B.c. 150, and probably deserted somewhere near 
the Christian era or perhaps later. Another bit of evidence of a 
similar kind, is the foundation of a villa seen in section in the 
Lagno Genzano, on its western side. The base of these ruined walls 
and of a cistern (well preserved) is built upon and into the pre- 
Plinian pumice, but nowhere reach its bottom. The building seems 
to have been of some importance, if we may judge from the sections 
of Doric columns scattered about, which are cut out of Nocerine 
tufa. According to Mr. Stevens’s opinion these certainly belong to 
a period anterior to the Christian era. 
