822 



THE WONDERS OF GEOLOGY. Lect. VIII. 



11. Herculaneum and Pompeii. — Such are the phe- 

 nomena attendant on the modern paroxysms of Vesuvius : 

 but this celebrated mountain is invested with surpassing 

 interest, from the wonderful preservation of the cities 

 which were overwhelmed by its first recorded eruption, in 

 the seventy-ninth year of the Christian era. 



In the words of an eloquent writer, "After nearly seven- 

 teen centuries had rolled away, the city of Pompeii was 

 disinterred from its silent tomb — all vivid with undimmed 

 hues, — its walls fresh as if painted yesterday, — not a tint 

 faded on the rich mosaic of its floors, — in its Forum the 

 half-finished columns, as left by the workman's hand, — 

 before the trees in its gardens the sacrificial tripod, — in its 

 halls the chest of treasure, — in its baths the strigil, — in its 

 theatres the counter of admission, — in its saloons the fur- 

 niture and the lamp, — in its triclinia the fragments of the 

 last feast, — in its cubicula the perfumes and the rouge of 

 faded beauty, — and everywhere, the skeletons of those who 

 once moved the springs of that minute, yet gorgeous ma- 

 chine of luxury and of life." * 



From the description of this catastrophe by an eye-witness, 

 it appears that this outburst of Vesuvius was marked by a 

 terrific eruption of ashes and scoriae, which, borne upwards 

 by vapours, rose in an immense column, and is described by 

 the younger Pliny, in his letter to Tacitus, as resembling a 

 lofty pine spreading out at its summit into wide shadowing 

 branches :f and then followed total darkness, occasioned 



* Sir E. Bulwer Lyttons Last Days of Pompeii. 



f The elder Pliny, who, at the time of this outburst of Vesuvius, 

 held the command of the Roman fleet, stationed at Misenum — a Cape 

 or headland about twice the distance westward from the volcano, as 

 the city of Naples — in his anxiety to obtain a nearer view of the phe- 

 nomenon, fell a victim to the sulphurous vapours : and his nephew, 

 the younger Pliny, ayIio remained with (he fleet at Misenum, has left 

 a graphic description of the awful scene in his letters to Tacitus. 

 He states, that a dense column of vapour was first seen arising verti 



