EE —E—————— Se 
epochs er eras. 
404 
follows, not only that the volcanoes of 
this part of Italy were in full activity at 
a period when that tract was inhabited by 
men, but likewife, that thofe men lived 
in fociety ; for the ufe of linen neceflarily 
fuppofes the exiftence of a number of arts, 
which could only have been cultivated un- 
der the laws of a fociety regularly efta- 
blifhed. Citizen Petit-Radel affures us 
that he has met with congeries of bones 
in volcanic tufs, and in earthy lavas; he 
has even further found there grafly plants 
which could only grow on a vegetable 
foil. 
He has made a feries of laborious re- 
fearches, but to no purpofe, to find out 
a chronological monument which might 
determine in aclear and precife manner 
the «ra of thofe great eruptions of which 
he treats. in hismemoir, 
The filence obferved by the antient an- 
nalifts in refpeét to the Vefuvian erup- 
tions which preceded that of tie year 79, 
under the reignof Titus, is fuch, that 
Strabo, in the age of Augufius, when 
fpeaking of Vefuvius, only fays, ‘ it ap- 
pears that this mountain has burned for- 
metly.”” Neverthelefs, a tradition had 
been kept up from age to age, which fup- 
pofed that, in remote times, many erup- 
tions of fubterraneous fires had caufed 
very terrible fubverfions about it. From 
thence the facred rites of that Veftal wor« 
fhip, which, from time immemorial, were 
rigidly obferved at Laurentum, and 
paffed from that city to the Capital of the 
world, together with the Dizi Indigetes.— 
Ir we rightly divine the meaning of the 
in{eriptions which bear thefe words for 
dedication, Fowl Vefuvio facrum: Vulca- 
no quicto, et fiate matri, we fhall be more 
and more convinced of the memorials that 
this volcanic phenomenon had left in the 
tradition of thofe people. 
Here, fays Citizen Ameilhon, the au- 
thor means to eftablifh a bafis of phyfical 
chronology. He ftops at the moft antient 
cities, fuch as Gabii, Tufculum, Rome, 
Alba Longa, and feveral others which he 
has obferved on the volcanifed territory of 
antient Latium. According to the hilto- 
rical monuments on which he grounds his 
arguinent, all thofe cities were founded 
between the year 4170 and the year 1289 
b-fore the vulgar era. We are obliged, 
therefore, to place the great eruptions 
which caufed the lava to iffue from the 
craters, on which cities of the higheft an- 
tiquity have been built, before thofe 
; In the neighbourhood of 
Rome, and even of Naples, the line of 
_¥o:canic territory forms a regular demar- 
Epochs of antient Volcanoes. 
[Dec. 2, 
cation between the origin of the cities. 
founded on the volcanic territory, and 
that of the cities which cover the calea- 
reous territory, or the crefts of the Roman 
Apennines. Thefe latter have a parti 
cular contru€tion of their walls, which 
obliges us to refer them to the firft Greek . 
colonies, whofe arrival in Italy was ante- 
rior, by two or three centuries, to the 
cities built on the velcanic foil. The 
author gives to this conftruétion the name 
of irregular polygon. He fuppofes that 
the ftudy of this kind of antient architec- 
ture has been rather neglected till this 
time., Able writers, {kiiful architeés, 
and even Piranefi himfelf, have, in his 
opinion confounded it improperly with 
that which Vitruvius names the éucer= 
lum. 
Here follows the manner in which he 
characterizes it —‘* This kind of con- 
ftruction (fays he) is the molt wonderful 
that we meet with in antique edifices. — 
Its merit confifts immediately in the large= 
efs of the mafles. I have meafured fome 
(he adds) which were from four to ten 
feet in diameter. We may eafily conjec- 
ture what machines would be requifite to 
elevate them to a_certain height. The 
form of the ftone varies from the trian 
gular to the oétagonal. The perfect 
fquare is the only one we do not meet 
with. Every ftone muft have been cut 
for the place which it was to occupy.— 
Although without cement, they are fo 
admirably united together, that we may 
apply to thee works, what Procopius 
faid of the Appian-way :—‘ The ftones 
were engendered there, all cut out by 
nature. In a word, the forms of this 
confiruction are fuch, that if one of thefe 
ftones fhould happen to be diflodged, or 
to be crufhed by any warlike machine, 
it would neither involve the downfal of 
the upper ftones, nor difplace the lateral 
ones.” 
The caufeways of bafaltes appear to 
have furnifhed this model to the people 
who adopted it ; and the enchafing of the 
angles which we find there, feems to have 
been con‘rived in order that the confirue- 
tion might accommodate itlelf with more 
facility to the undulations of a terre mas 
tus, or convulfion of the earth. . 
*¢ Another obfervation not to be ne- 
gleéted, becaufe it aflifts us to form an 
idea of the military taétics of the people 
here treated of, is, that the walls formed 
two, and even three concentric inclotures, 
almot always difpofed about the cone of 
a mountain. Some fubterraneous roads, 
cut in the rock itfelf, ferved to commu- 
nicate 
