The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1884-02-12
Images Of Death.

Who that has an object before him
ever grows tired in Pompeii? As have
said, the aspect of the local museum is
smart. 1t glistsns, it CLEANS with its
polished oaken fittings and glass cases.
The pots and pans, the fishhooks and
stirrups, the calcined loayes and fruits
and nuts that have almost, butnot quite,
brought me face to face with the people
of A. ID. 79 are from carbonization
black, but they are comely. The whole
room looks bright and cheerful, yet on
every side are there mementoes OF death,
sudden, violent and terrible. Ranged
round the walls are skeletons OF men,
women, infants, horses, mules, dogs,
cats and poultry, all dug from the ruins.
Stay, the little sucking pig yonder, that
was found in the bakers oven, escaped
violent end. He had been mercifully
stuck to death before they scored and
trussed him for the bakehouse. His
tender cracking, the gristle of his snout,
his ears and eyes'have long since been
resolved into dust and ashes. but the
esseous structure of the tiny creature Is
yet perfect, even to the bones OF the
petitoes and the vertebr.e of the once
curly tail. Plum sauce and not pumice
stone should have crowned the funeral
pyre of that little pig How brown and
shiny he must have been growing, how
nice he must have smelt, when the
black rain of ashes came down upon
him and covered him up for eighteen
centuries.
But the middle of the museum; what
is there in the midst of the museum?
Sudden, violent and dreadful death, the
aspect of which is almost supernaturally
revealed to us, but which bears no ap-
palling look. have rarely known a
civilian who. having once been over a
field OF battle, say three days after the
slaughter, exhibited the slightest desire
to make second time that journey full
of horrors. Yet there is nothing shock
ing, and scarcely anything. indeed, that
can be called painful. in the eappearance
of the images Of death ranged al full
length on the tables. The PROSTATE
| figure of the man who. from the aqui-
line outline of his countenance. is known
as the Roman, and whe is girt with a
money-belt His death must have been
from asphyxiation His head reposes
ON one of his arms; the expression Oi
| the countenance is one OF deeply
| thoughtful gravity scarcely sleep, al
| though the eyes are closed, but rather
profound meditation. And then the
| TdgdzzO, the boy of eleven or twelve
| summers, who has tumbled face fore.
most on the ground, and died there in q
moment, And the rdgd yZa, the exquis
itely formed young girl of sixteen ol
seventeen, her face turned a little OF
one side, so that you can see her sweet
in girlish coquetry. These images o
sudden and violent death are all nude
but when they were striken down by
death they wore the garments Of then
time and rank-garments which the
heated ashes calcined and made to van
ish in a moment. But the aqua botidfste
the boiling vapor permeating the pun
ice, the scorie and the ashes formed
round each body fine paste, which re
ceived the imprint of the corpse which
it surrounded. The paste after som'
DAYS dried, and became a sharply de
fined mold, and then came the eighteer
centuries of entombment. The bodies
decayed, the bones fell away from liga
ments which turned to dust, but thu
sharp mold remained. retaining ever
detail of the external form of what hat
once been human. And one day Caya
liere Fiorelli. experimenting the proof
of the ''scavi," was told by one of hi
workmen that with his pick-ax he ha'
struck into cavity apparently OF cor
siderable dimensions. The cavity wa
sounded, and by and by some vestige
of mortality-a vertebra, bone OF
tarsus or metacarpus was brought Il
the surface. 1t instantly occurred to tn
astute mind of Cayaliere Fiorelli that
human body had once filled that avity
and that the long g-since indurated mas
of pumice and ashes had formed mol
which should present an exact imprin
of the disintegrated corpse. Liqui
| plaster of Paris was brought and poure'
| through the aperture of the cavity. Th
L plaster was allowed to harden, and the
the surrounding mold was gently re
moved, and these astonishing tran
scripts of life suddenly turned int
death were revealed. In only one @
these bodies. strangely resuscitated-i
the paradox can be pardoned-h
4 means of a bucketful of liquefed plaSte
of Paris, are any signs of acute physics
suffering visible. There is.a reproduC
ton of the body of a dog which. with
| collar round its neck, was found by tn
side OF the yestibule of patrician
house The lo,r dog had died hard,
has rolled over i'll its agony and lies o
its back. its mou' h open, IFS limbs viz
lently eontortcd The stretched-or
forepaws are crossed almost in an att
tude of supplicstion; and the who
frame is twisted and wrenched in
manner suggestive of fearful pain ha'
inc been suffered ere the relief of doat
came IounDn TPtPGrHDh