people who possessed libraries, the records of which can be in many
cases deciphered, and from which we might hope to obtain some of the
lost treasures of antiquity. The papyrus rolls on which the books of
that day were written, though charred by heat and time, are still
interpretable.

After the great explosion of 79, Vesuvius sank again into repose. It
was not until 1056 that vigorous eruptions again began. From time to
time slight explosions occurred, none of which yielded lava flows; it
was not until the date last mentioned that this accompaniment of the
eruption began to appear. In 1636, after a repose of nearly a century
and a half, there came a very great outbreak, which desolated a wide
extent of country on the northwestern side of the cone. At this stage
in the history of the crater the volcanic flow began to attain the
sea. Washing over the edge of the old original crater of Monte Somma,
and thus lowering its elevation, these streams devastated, during the
eruption just mentioned and in various other outbreaks, a wide field
of cultivated land, overwhelming many villages. The last considerable
eruption which yielded large quantities of lava was that of 1872,
which sent its tide for a distance of about six miles.

Since 1636 the eruptions of Vesuvius have steadily increased in
frequency, and, on the whole, diminished in violence. In the early
years of its history the great outbreaks were usually separated by
intervals of a century or more, and were of such energy that the lava
was mostly blown to dust, forming clouds so vast that on two occasions
at least they caused a midnight darkness at Constantinople, nearly
twelve hundred miles away. This is as if a volcano at Chicago should
completely hide the sun in the city of Boston. In the present state of
Vesuvius, the cone may be said to be in slight, almost continuous