The Sun.
London, England, 1830-09-11 00:00:00

NEM' AND POMPEII.

Both at Herculaneum and Pompeii, temples
have been found with inscriptions commemorat-
ing their having been rebuilt alter they were
thrown down ;by an earthquake. This earth-
quake. .
happened in the reign of Nero, sixteen
years before the inhumation of the cities. In
Pompeii, one-fourth of which is now laid open
to the day, both the public and private buildings
bear testimony to the catastrophe. The walls
are rent, and in many places traversed by fissures
still open. Columns are lying on the ground
only half hewn from huge blocks of travertin,
and the temple for which they were designed is
seen half repaired. In some few places the
pavement had sunk in, but in general it was un-
disturbed, consisting of great flags of lava, in
which two immense ruts have been worn by the
constant passage of carriages through the narrow
street. When the hardness of the stone is con-
sidered, the continuity of these ruts train one
end of the town to the other is not a little re-
markable, for there is nothing of the kind in the
oldest pavements of modern cities.
A very small number of skeletons have been
discovered in either city ; and it is clear that the
great mass of inhabitants not Only found time to
escape, but also to carry with them the'principal
Part of their valuable effects. In the barracks at
ompeii were the skeletons of two soldiers
chained to the stocks, and in the vaults of a
country-house in the suburbs, were the skeletons
of seventeen persons who appear to have fled
there to escape from the shower of ashes. They
were found enclosed in an indurated tuff; and in
this matrix was preserved a perfect cast of a SVO-•
man, perhaps the mistress of the house, with nor
infinit in her arms. Although her form was im-
printed on the rock, nothing but the bones re-
mained. To these a chain of gold was sus-
pended, and rings with jewels were on the fingers
of the skeleton. Against the sides of the same
vault was ranged a long line of earthen amphorre.
The writings scribbled by the soldiers on the
walls of their barracks, and the names of the
owners of each house written over the doors, are
still perfectly legible. The colours of fresco
paintings on the stuccoed walls in the interior of
buildings are almost as vivid as if they were just
finished.

The wooden beams in the houses at Hercule-
neum are black on the exterior, but when cleft
open they appear to be almost in the state of
ordinary wood, and the progress made by the
whole mass towards the state of lignite is scarcely
appreciable. Some animal and vegetable sub-
stances of more perishable kinds have of course
suffered much change and decay, yet the state of
conservation of these is truly remarkable. Fishing-
nets are very abundant in both cities, often quite
entire ; and their number at Pompeii is the more
interesting from the sea being now a mile dia.
tent. Linen has been found at Herculaneum,
with the texture well defined ; and in a fruiterer's
shop in that city were discovered vessels full of
almonds, chestnuts, walnuts, and fruit of the
carubiere," all distinctly recognizable front
their shape. A loaf, also, still retaining its
form, was found in a baker's shop, with his name
stamped upon it thus : cr Elena Q. Crani Riser."
On the counter of an apothecary was a box of
pills converted into a fine earthly substance ; and
by the side of it a small cylindrical roll, evidently
prepared to cut into pills. By the side of these
was a jar containing medicinal herbs. In 1827
moist olives To found in a square glass case,
and " caviare,' or roe of a fish, in a state of
wonderful! preservation. An examination' of
these curious condiments have been Published
by Covelli, of Naples, and they are preserved
hermetically sealed in the museum theme..
Lyell's Geology.