centuries as if it had been swept from the face of the earth. When you
study it in detail you will hardly avoid the illusion that it is a rising
city; you will almost be tempted to ask where are the workmen, so perfect
art the walls of the houses, so bright and uninjured the painting upon
them. Hardly anything is wanting to make this scene a magnificent
epitome of all that is most worthy of admiration in Nature and art; had
there been in addition to the other objects a fine river and a waterfall
the epitome would, I think, have been absolutely perfect.

_Phil_.--You are most unreasonable in imagining additions to a scene
which it is impossible to embrace in one view, and which presents so many
objects to the senses, the memory, and to the imagination; yet there is a
river in the valley between Naples and Castel del Mare; you may see its
silver thread and the white foam of its torrents in the distance, and if
you were geologists you would find a number of sources of interest, which
have not been mentioned, in the scenery surrounding us. Somma which is
before us, for instance, affords a wonderful example of a mountain formed
of marine deposits, and which has been raised by subterraneous fire, and
those large and singular veins which you see at the base and rising
through the substance of the strata are composed of volcanic porphyry,
and offer a most striking and beautiful example of the generation and
structure of rocks and mineral formations.

_Onuphrio_.--As we passed through Portici, on the road to the base of
Vesuvius, it appeared to me that I saw a stone which had an ancient Roman
inscription upon it, and which occupied the place of a portal in the
modern palace of the Barberini.

_Phil_.--This is not an uncommon circumstance: Most of the stones used in
the palaces of Portici had been employed more than two thousand years