The prairie news. [volume] (Okolona, Miss.) 1851-1875, 1858-08-05

ScCOHu tdItuqudhc lHJuteu N"Pioo az"
destroyed the very theatre where the i'm
perial aspirant after histrionic honors had
been performing. These convulsions of
nature continued more or less for sixteen
years, and whoever has gazed upon the
uncovered cities at the base of Nesuvius
will remember the many cracks and tis-
sures in walls, pavements, and columns,
which were the results of these earth
quakes.
At length, in the year 70, occurred
that eruption whose very destructjveness
has preserved to us two provincial cities
of Rome's palmiest days, and has per
mitted US to learn more of the domestic
life and architecture of the ancients than
all the writings of historians and poets,
or from all the specuatiOns of ingenious
archeologists and aniiquarans upon the
vast ruins of the eternal city. Pliny the
elder perisbed at the time of this erup-
ton, and the description of the awful ca
tastrophe which resulted in his death has
been most wildly given US by his nephew
Pliny, the younger. For freshness and
naturaness of narrative we know nothing
which has come down from Pagan anti
guilty which will compare with these let
tiers Of Pliny.
This eruption with which we are so
familiar did not cover Herculaneum, as
many suppose, at first, with lava; and
as for Pompeii, the lava never reached
it at all. No MOsaics--no marble stat
ues-no paintings and bronze ornaments
of these cities would ever have been seen
in our day if red-hot molten lava had
poured over them. We would have had
in their places, lime, ashes, and conglo-
merate masses of metal and stone. Ash
es blew out from the volcano-fine dust,
which even in modern times has filled the
land, and yapors were discharged. lhe
vapor condensed, and with the ashes and
dust formed a mud-rain that penetrated
the most intricate recesSes, and complete
ly overlaid the two cities Afterwards
the lava rolled upon the ashes and scoria
which already shielded Hcrculaneum,
and in the course of centuries Of erup-
tion the superintendent mass reached in
some places 100 feet in thickness.
Vesuvius was dormant for 124 years,
when, in the reign of Septimus oeverus,
the second eruption took place. From
that time until 1906, Vesuvius was nine
times in active operation. After the ninth
eruption, succeeding throes OF Nature
were SO violent and continued that more
than 10000 people perished beneath the
ruins of their houses. The destructive
ness of this eruption has no parallel in
the history of Mount Vesuvius, and the
only approach to it is the recent calamity
in the Kingdom of Naples, by the earth
quake which preceded the eruption Of
June 1858. 1t is estimated in the very
interesting account published IN Har-
per's Weekly, June l9) of the benevo-
lent operations of an English gentleman
on the scene of the devastations, that no
less than 10000 inhabitants of the prov
inces of Salerno and Basillicata We're
slain by this casualty.
The greatest destruction OF human lie
by lara took place in 1851, the volcano,
after repose OF l3l years, IN which Tune
the side of the crater was overgr0Wn
with brush-wood and trees, while the bot
tom was a plain where cattle fed and
wild boars were hunted. One stream OF
lava from this eruption destroyed two
thirds of Tore del Greco; another COM
pletely annibilated Resina, which had
beeu built over buried Herculaneum !:
and another lava ruin, after destroying a
portion of Poftici and the whole OF era
narello, flowed into the sea and formed
the bed upon which the Royal Palace
and La Favorita were subsequently built.
Eighteen thousand persons are sad 70
have perished in this catastrophe. Inc
ashes were carried by the wind to the
shores of the Adriatic, the Greek Islands,
and to Constnltinople.
During the twenty y-trst recorded erup-
ton (l7l7 the celebrated Bishop Berke-
lev was at Naples, and communicated to
the Royal Society his observation on the
state of the mountain. The most dlstln-
guished performance of Mount Vesuvlus
octurred7 in 1898 and 94, when thelava
was discharged with such abundance and
Auiditv as to roll like vast river into
the Mediterranean. After, various pha-
SEES. in the month of june, '94, a crater
or tissure opened in the mountain side at
about half its height, and from this the
!. lava poured down in such volume as to
form torrent, whose collective force
NAV be stated at q ,265 feet in width and
varying from IL to 40 feet in thickness
This mass plunged into the sea and push
4 ed itself aso feet into the deep waters
/ before it received any apparent check
/ Lava usually rolls as slowly as 'thlcf
4 ,~..., ,lo,y,, a lgantlv inclined, plain buI