The Buried City of Pompeii.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 790, 5 April 1905, Page 4

The Buried City of Pompeii.

Pompeii was not 'destroyed by a fiery streari of ii:i,;len lava, as is popularly suppose). First there fell a shower of ashes and cinders, with here and there a huge mass of volcanic matter, and then there followi ed torrents of liquid mud, which flowed over all and formed over the , city a crust, preserving everything that remained 1 from further injury or decay. Bad the stream been burning lava, it must have melted down , the bronzes, and reduced it to all one heap of moiten matter. As it is, the most delica-te frescoes remain uninjured, and the most minute articles are found in their integrity, and even such "readfcy contb'ustive mnlon'als ne , U,-,,.,,1 ...1 ~1...-..,.

materials as thread and skeins of slik have been gathered from the ruined dwellings. We have seen a glass jar of oil still retaining its contents, delicate bottles of perfume, jI apparently as fresh as when pur- | chased* at the shop. mow marvel(l lous does all this seem when we re~ , member that the city was buried in A.D. 79, and that it has lain in , its grave for eighteen hundred years. '| Very few human remains are found in the for although; the p ' inhabitants had scant warning, it appears that at the time the bulk Of ttfc population were asscmljtcd in the great amphitheatre, which is ouV- , Side the town, finding them'l selves cut off from the rest of tho J city by the falling ashes, they made their escape fi'om the pending doom. j All of them, however, were not so fortunate, for some 600 skeletons l were exSumed before half of -the city had been uncovered. ' In Pompeii's last hour, whin the , a darkness which might have been felt, settled down upon them, the bread was in the oven, but tha nev- : saw H taken from 'thQ.imsyt _ was seething in the pofc, * iicver ' to " be eaten ; the slave was' at the mill ; the prisoner in the dungeon ; the J money dealer m his treasury ; but none of them saw aught of their labours, their pains- their pleasures again. A very large proportion of the dead were found in the barracks-i f thirty-four wtre found together, beyond doubt the guard were called out for that fatal night. Discipline must j have been powerful indeed to have 5 kept men at their duty at such a, . time, when they were not far from the city ga*,es. The officer's wife and children shared the same fate, and ' with them those ever-faithful friends , of man, the dogs who had fed' beneath the table. Onq of the first buildings seen by [. the traveller on entering the excava-

tions is the villa whose owner is upposod to h.ave been named Dioin- | ed, because a tomti on ttio opposite ai;dc of the road bears that name. | In the large cellars of this 'houses seventeen persons were found huddled in a corner. A skeleton, believed to fbe the master of the house, was found near the garden gate, the key of the villa in his hand. Outside tire door on the other side of the road a 1 skeleton was found, with two children b\ the side, perhaps mother and children. In the Street of Abundance, in the li o use of a moncyj changer, in a vaulL-HKie room, lies a skeleton upon a heap of rubbish, with outstretched arms and fingers, as if he had been grasping at earth with his last life throb. Near -him the diggers found some 400 coins, mostly of silver, nnft rings. Was he a thief ? Ami were these the spoils he had gathered ? Or was he 'the money changer? And were these hia capital ? No owe can answer these 'questions, but the blending together of death and gold is no new thing. The skeleton in the large room behind the Temple of Isis was found with bones of efffeken, fish bones, egg shells, bread wine, and a gar land of flowers around it. He must havo been a rare feeder indeed.