1T8 
A  VISIT  TO  VESUVIUS. 
tarch  describes  Spartacus  and  his  followers  as  encamping  in  the  rocky 
hollow  (crater)  on  the  summit,  which  was  clothed  with  wild  vines  and 
which  was  entered  by  a  pass  on  the  side  towards  Naples.  This  indicates 
the  long  quiescent  period  which  must  have  elapsed  preceding  the  erup- 
tion of  79.  After  several  years  of  occasional  subterranean  disturbance 
in  the  vicinity  of  Vesuvius,  during  which  earthquakes  had  damaged  Her- 
culaneum,  Pompeii,  Puzzuoli,  etc.,  the  great  eruption  of  A.  D.  79  oc- 
curred, which  buried  the  two  former  cities.  The  account  left  by  Pliny  of 
the  circumstances  of  this  eruption,  which  occasioned  the  death  of  the  elder 
Pliny,  near  Stabiee,  corroborates  the  examinations  of  modern  geologists 
that  no  lava  issued  from  Vesuvius  on  that  occasion,  but  that  the  eruption 
consisted  in  the  ejection  of  vast  quantities  of  ashes,  water  and  mud,  with 
prodigious  quantities  of  stones  and  fragments  of  various  volcanic  matters. 
There  must  have  been  a  strong  current  of  air  from  the  north  which 
carried  the  loose  matter,  including  stones  of  several  pounds  weight,  as  far 
as  Pompeii,  and  lesser  ones  to  Stabiae,  and  the  present  more  gradual 
inclination  of  the  base  of  Vesuvius  in  that  direction  is  additional  evidence 
of  the  immense  bulk  of  these  ejections,  which  at  the  distance  of  several 
miles  were  sufficient  to  entomb  so  extensive  a  city  as  Pompeii.  While  at 
the  latter  city  we  witnessed  the  laborers  at  work  removing  the  ashes  from 
a  part  of  the  excavations  now  going  on,  and  obtained  a  specimen,  which 
is  of  a  uniform  light  stone  color,  very  friable,  no  sand  visible,  and  ap- 
pearing as  though  it  had  assumed  its  present  position  in  a  comparatively 
dry  state.  The  ejection  of  water  and  steam  on  that  occasion  appears  to 
have  been  one  of  the  most  prominent  characteristics  of  the  eruption, 
and  to  have  been  the  immediate  cause  of  overwhelming  Herculaneum 
with  a  torrent  of  mud  formed  of  the  light  ashes  which  it  gathered  up  in 
its  descent  along  the  mountain  slopes  to  the  bay,  and  which  penetrated  at 
once  into  every  part  of  the  buildings  of  that  fated  city;  not  however 
before  most  of  the  inhabitants  escaped.  Whether  the  water  thus  ejected 
was  derived  from  a  rupture  of  the  earth's  crust  under  the  sea,  is  a  fruit 
ful  subject  of  speculation  for  the  geologists.  The  result  of  this  eruption 
was  to  destroy  the  whole  south-western  wall  of  the  ancient  crater  towards 
the  bay.  which  was  probably  disintegrated  under  the  influence  of  fire  and 
superheated  steam,  (the  power  of  which  in  effecting  the  decomposition  of 
minerals,  is  well  known  in  the  chemical  laboratory),  and  ejected  as  ashes 
and  mud,  changing  the  coast  line  so  as  to  make  the  site  of  Pompeii  half 
a  mile  inland,  whilst  it  was  formerly  a  seaport  on  the  bay.  The  re- 
mainder of  this  old  crater  yet  exists,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  a  memento 
of  this  wonderful  catastrophe.  In  the  year  472  an  eruption  occurred, 
that  again  visited  the  sites  of  Herculaneum  and  Pompeii,  which  had 
become  occupied  by  villages.  Other  eruptions  happened  in  the  years 
512,  685,  993,  1036, 1049, 1139, 1306  and  1500.  After  the  eruption  of  1500, 
described  by  Leone,  of  Nola,  the  crater  was  "  five  miles  in  circuit,  and 
1000  paces  deep/'  and  remained  quiescent  for  a  hundred  and  thirty-one 
