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Show ~36 IMBEDDING OF ORGANIC AND OTHER RKl\UINS [Ch. XlV, Imbedding of Organic Bodies and Works of Art in Volcanic Formations on the Land. · We have in some deO'ree anticipated the subject of this section 0 • • . in a former volume, when speaking of the buned c1t1es around Naples, and those on the flanks of Etna *. F~·om the facts referred to by us, it appears that the preservation of human remains and works of art has been frequently due to the descent of floods caused by the copious rains which usually accompany eruptions. These aqueous lavas, as they are called in Campania, flow with great rapidity, and in 18~~ surprised and suffocated, as we have stated, seven persons in the villages of St. Sebastian and Massa, on the flanks of Vesuvius. In the tuffs, moreover, or solidified mud, deposited by these aqueous lavas, impressions of leaves and of tree.s have been observed. Some of those formed after the erupt10n of Vesuvius in 18~~, are now preserved in the museum at Naples. Lava itself may become indirectly the means of preserving terrestrial remains, by overflowing beds of ashes, pumice, and ejected matter, which may have been showered down upon animals and plants, or upon human remains. Few substances are better non-conductors of heat than volcanic dust and scorire, so that a bed of such materials is rarely melted by a superimposed lava-current. After consolidation, the lava affords secure protection to the lighter and more removeable mass below, wherein the organic relics may be enveloped. The Herculanean tuffs containing the rolls of papyrus, of which the characters are still legible, have, as we before remarked, been for ages covered by lava. Another mode whereby lava may tend to the conservation of imbedded remains, at least of works of human art, is by overflowing them when not intensely heated, in which case they often suffer little or no injury. Thus when the Etnean lava-current of 1669 covered fourteen towns and villages, and part of the C·i ty of Catam·a , 1· t d1'd no t *Vol. i., pp. 349 and 365. Ch. XIV.] IN VOLCANIC FOR1\IA1'JONS ON THE LAND. melt down a ·great numb cr of statues an d other arti.C les m. the vaults of Catania·' and a t tl1 e d ept1 f . . 1 o thirty-five feet m the same current, on the site of Momp1'l 'I ere, one of t 11 c b un.e d towns, the bell of a church and som e s t a t ues were ../t!o un d uninjured*. W. e remarked in a former volume , til a t m. many countri.e s whiCh have been peopled from remote age s b y c1·v 1' lI' ze d nati·O ns and have been at the same time the theat1. ·es of vo 1c am•e acti·o n,' there . mus.t be m. n. umerable monuments of tl1 e 11 1· g h est va1 u e to the lnstonan, wluch continue unobserved " b ecause t 11 ey h ave not been. searched for.'' But we omitted to d escn'b e m· c1 e tm' l a s~lend~d example of several buried cities in Central India, whiCh might probably be made to yield a richer harvest to the ant~q.uary tha~ .Pompeii and Herculaneum f. The city of OuJem (or OoJam) was, about fifty years before the Christian rera, the seat of empire, of art, and of learninoo·,. b u t m· tl1 e ti·m e of the Rajah Vicramaditya, it was overwhelme-1 t tl . . . u, oge 1er, as trad1t1on . reports, With more than eighty other 1a rge t owns m· the provmces of Malwa and Bagur, "by a shower of earth." The city which now bears the name is situated a mile to the southwar~ of the ancient _town. On digging on the spot where t?e latter Is supposed to have stood, to the depth of fifteen or eighteen feet, there are frequently discovered says M. . . , 1•. H un te. r, entire br1ck walls, pillars of stone, and pieces of wood of an ext:aordi~ary hardness, besides utensils of various kinds, and ancient coms. Many coins are also found in the channels cut by the periodical rain~, or in the beds of torrents into which they have been washed. "Durino· our stay at Ou1e1'n 1 . o J , a arge quantity o.f hw heat was found by a man diO'O'ing for bricks It 00 . was,. as 1mg t have been expected, almost entirely consumed, a~d m a state ~e~embling charcoal. In a ravine cut by the rams, from whiCh several stone pillars l1ad been dug, I saw a space from twelve to fifteen feet long and seven or eio·ht hiO'h com d f h o h ' pose o eart en vessels, broken and close} y compacted to.(~) 'ether · It wa s c.o nJ·e c t ur.e d , · 1 Wit 1 great appearance of proba-hihty, to have been a potter's kiln. Between this place and * Vol, i., p. 366. t Ibid., p. 407. |