surrounding hills and plains, together with
several of the adjoining isles, owe the fertility of their soil to
matter ejected by prior eruptions. Had the fundamental limestone of the
Apennines remained uncovered throughout the whole area, the country
could not have sustained a twentieth part of its present inhabitants.
This will be apparent to every geologist who has marked the change in
the agricultural character of the soil the moment he has passed the
utmost boundary of the volcanic ejections, as when, for example, at the
distance of about seven miles from Vesuvius, he leaves the plain and
ascends the declivity of the Sorrentine Hills.

Yet, favored as this region has been by Nature from time immemorial, the
signs of the changes imprinted on it during the period that it has
served as the habitation of man may appear in after-ages to indicate a
series of unparalleled disasters. Let us suppose that at some future
time the Mediterranean should form a gulf of the great ocean, and that
the waves and tidal current should encroach on the shores of Campania,
as it now advances upon the eastern coast of England; the geologist will
then behold the towns already buried, and many more which will evidently
be entombed hereafter, laid open in the steep cliffs, where he will
discover buildings superimposed above each other, with thick intervening
strata of tuff or lava--some unscathed by fire, like those of
Herculaneum and Pompeii; others half melted down, as in Torre del Greco;
and many shattered and thrown about in strange confusion, as in
Tripergola, beneath Monte Nuovo. Among the ruins will be seen skeletons
of men, and impressions of the human form stamped in solid rocks of
tuff. Nor will the signs of earthquakes be wanting. The pavement of part
of the Domitian Way, and the temple of the Nymphs, submerged at high
tide, will be uncovered at low water, the columns remaining erect and
uninjured. Other temples which had once sunk down, like that of Serapis,
will be found to have been upraised again by subsequent movements. If
they who study these phenomena, and speculate on their causes, assume
that there were periods when the laws of Nature or the whole course of
natural events differed greatly from those observed in their own time,
they will scarcely hesitate to refer the wonderful monuments in question
to those primeval ages. When they consider the numerous proofs of
reiterated catastrophes to which the region was subject, they