56 SECRETS OF EARTH AND SEA 



and later inhabitants of the rich and beautiful shores of 

 the Neapolitan bay before the fateful year A.D. 79, had 

 regarded the low crater-topped mountain called Vesuvius 

 or Vesbius, as well as the great circular forest-grown or 

 lake-holding cups near Cumas and the Cape Misenum, at 

 the northern end of the bay — known to-day as the 

 Solfatara, Astroni, Monti Grillo, Barbaro, and Cigliano — 

 and the lakes Lucrino, Averno, and Agnano. These 

 together with the Monte Nuovo — which suddenly rose 

 from the sea near Baiae in 1538 and as suddenly dis- 

 appeared — constitute " the Phlegraean fields." Vesuvius 

 was loftier than any one of the Phlegraean craters, and 

 the gentle slope by which it rose from the sea level to a 

 height of nearly 3700 ft. had, as now, a circumference of 

 ten miles. It did not terminate in a " cone," as in later 

 ages, but in a depressed, circular, forest-covered area 

 measuring a mile across, which was the ancient crater. A 

 drawing showing the shape of the mountain at this period 

 is the work of the late Prof. Phillips of Oxford (Fig. 30). 

 The soil formed around and upon the ancient lava-streams 

 of Vesuvius appears to have been ahvays especially fertile, 

 so that flourishing towns and villages occupied its slopes, 

 and the ports of Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabise were 

 the seats of a busy and long-established population. The 

 existence of active volcanoes at no great distance from 

 Vesuvius was, however, well known to the ancient Greeks 

 and Romans. The great Sicilian mountain, Etna — more 

 than 10,000 ft. in height, rising from a base of ninety 

 miles in circumference — and the Lipari Islands, such as 

 Stromboli and Volcano, were for many centuries in inter- 

 mittent activity before the first recorded eruption of 

 Vesuvius — that of A.D. 79 — and great eruptions are 

 recorded as having occurred in the mountain mass of 

 the island of Ischia, close to the Bay of Naples, in the 

 fifth, third, and first centuries B.C. 



