substance while alive. Round the neck of this skeleton there was a
gold chain, and on the fingers jewelled rings.

In many of the houses the names of the owners over the doors are
still legible, and the fresco-paintings on the inner walls are
still quite fresh and beautiful. The public fountains are adorned
with shells formed into patterns; and in the room of a painter
there was found a collection of shells in perfectly good order. A
large quantity of fishing-nets was found in both the cities, and in
Herculaneum some pieces of linen retaining its texture. There also
was discovered a fruiterer's shop, with vessels full of almonds,
chestnuts, carubs, and walnuts. In another shop stood a glass
vessel containing moist olives, and a jar with caviare--the
preserved roe of the sturgeon. In the shop of an apothecary stood a
box that had contained pills, now reduced to powder, which had been
prepared for a patient destined never to swallow them--a happy
circumstance for him, if he eventually escaped from the city. Very
recently there has been laid open a baker's shop, with the loaves
of bread on the shelves, all ready for his customers, but doomed
never to be eaten. These loaves are of the same form as those still
made in that country, and on being analyzed were found to consist
of the same ingredients as modern bread.

Mount Vesuvius rises rather abruptly from the plain on which it
stands. The circuit of the base is about twelve miles, and the
height of the summit above the level of the sea about three
thousand feet. This latter measurement, however, alters from time
to time, owing to the variable height of the cone. Its moderate
elevation, and the ease with which it may be approached, have
induced many travellers to ascend the mountain; and not a few have