The same persons accompanied me in many journeys by land and water to
different parts of the Phlegraean fields, and we enjoyed in a most
delightful season, the beginning of May, the beauties of the glorious
country which encloses the Bay of Naples, so rich, so ornamented with the
gifts of nature, so interesting from the monuments it contains and the
recollections it awakens. One excursion, the last we made in southern
Italy, the most important both from the extraordinary personage with whom
it made me acquainted and his influence upon my future life, merits a
particular detail which I shall now deliver to paper.
It was on the 16th of May, 18-- that we left Naples at three in the
morning for the purpose of visiting the remains of the temples of Paestum,
and having provided relays of horses we found ourselves at about half-
past one o'clock descending the hill of Eboli towards the plain which
contains these stupendous monuments of antiquity. Were my existence to
be prolonged through ten centuries, I think I could never forget the
pleasure I received on that delicious spot. We alighted from our
carriage to take some refreshment, and we reposed upon the herbage under
the shade of a magnificent pine contemplating the view around and below
us. On the right were the green hills covered with trees stretching
towards Salerno; beyond them were the marble cliffs which form the
southern extremity of the Bay of Sorento; immediately below our feet was
a rich and cultivated country filled with vineyards and abounding in
villas, in the gardens of which were seen the olive and the cypress tree
connected as if to memorialise how near to each other are life and death,
joy and sorrow; the distant mountains stretching beyond the plain of
Paestum were in the full luxuriance of vernal vegetation; and in the
extreme distance, as if in the midst of a desert, we saw the white
temples glittering in the sunshine. The blue Tyrrhene sea filled up the
outline of this scene, which, though so beautiful, was not calm; there
was a heavy breeze which blew full from the southwest; it was literally a
zephyr, and its freshness and strength in the middle of the day were
peculiarly balmy and delightful; it seemed a breath stolen by the spring
from the summer. I never saw a deeper, brighter azure than that of the
waves which rolled towards the shore, and which was rendered more
striking by the pure whiteness of their foam. The agitation of nature
seemed to be one of breathing and awakening life; the noise made by the
waving of the branches of the pine above our heads and by the rattling of
its cones was overpowered by the music of a multitude of birds which sung
everywhere in the trees that surrounded us, and the cooing of the turtle-
doves was heard even more distinctly than the murmuring of the waves or
the whistling of the winds, so that in the strife of nature the voice of
love was predominant. With our hearts touched by this extraordinary
scene we descended to the ruins, and having taken at a farmhouse a person
who acted as guide or cicerone, we began to examine those wonderful
remains which have outlived even the name of the people by whom they were
raised, and which continue almost perfect whilst a Roman and a Saracen
city since raised have been destroyed. We had been walking for half an
hour round the temples in the sunshine when our guide represented to us
the danger that there was of suffering from the effects of malaria, for
which, as is well known, this place is notorious, and advised us to
retire into the interior of the temple of Neptune. We followed his
advice, and my companions began to employ themselves in measuring the
circumference of one of the Doric columns, when they suddenly called my
attention to a stranger who was sitting on a camp-stool behind it. The
appearance of any person in this place at this time was sufficiently
remarkable, but the man who was before us from his dress and appearance
would have been remarkable anywhere. He was employed in writing in a
memorandum book when we first saw him, but he immediately rose and
saluted us by bending the head slightly though gracefully; and this
enabled me to see distinctly his person and dress. He was rather above
the middle stature, slender, but with well-turned limbs; his countenance
was remarkably intelligent, his eye hazel but full and strong, his front
was smooth and unwrinkled, and but for some grey hairs, which appeared
silvering his brown and curly locks, he might have been supposed to have
hardly reached the middle age; his nose was aquiline, the expression of
the lower part of his countenance remarkably sweet, and when he spoke to
our guide, which he did with uncommon fluency in the Neapolitan dialect,
I thought I had never heard a more agreeable voice, sonorous yet gentle
and silver-sounded. His dress was very peculiar, almost like that of an
ecclesiastic, but coarse and light; and there was a large soiled white
hat on the ground beside him, on which was fastened a pilgrim's cockle
shell, and there was suspended round his neck a long antique blue
enamelled phial, like those found in the Greek tombs, and it was attached
to a rosary of coarse beads. He took up his hat, and appeared to be
retiring to another part of the building, when I apologised for the
interruption we had given to his studies, begged him to resume them, and
assured him that our stay in the building would be only momentary, for I
saw that there was a cloud over the sun, the brightness of which was the
cause of our retiring. I spoke in Italian; he replied in English,
observing that he supposed the fear of contracting the malaria fever had
induced us to seek the shelter of the shade: but it is too early in the
season to have much reasonable fear of this insidious enemy; yet, he
added, this bottle which you may have observed here at my breast, I carry
about with me, as a supposed preventive of the effects of malaria, and as
far as my experience, a very limited one, however, has gone, it is
effectual. I ventured to ask him what the bottle might contain, as such
a benefit ought to be made known to the world. He replied, "It is a
mixture which slowly produces the substance called by chemists chlorine,
which is well known to be generally destructive to contagious matters;
and a friend of mine who has lived for many years in Italy, and who has
made a number of experiments with it, by exposing himself to the danger
of fever in the worst seasons and in the worst places, believes that it
is a secure preventive. I am not convinced of this; but it can do no
harm; and in waiting for more evidence of its utility, I employ it
without putting the least confidence in its power; nor do I expose myself
to the same danger as my friend has done for the sake of an experiment."
I said, "I believe several scientific persons--Brocchi amongst
others--have doubted the existence of any specific matter in the
atmosphere producing intermittent fevers in marshy countries and hot
climates; and have been more disposed to attribute the disease to
physical causes, dependent upon the great differences of temperature
between day and night and to the refrigerating effects of the dense fogs
common in such situations in the evening and morning; and, on this
hypothesis, they have recommended warm woollen clothing and fires at
night as the best preventives against these destructive diseases, so
fatal to the peasants who remain in the summer and autumn in the
neighbourhood of the maremme of Rome, Tuscany, or Naples." The stranger
said, "I am acquainted with the opinions of the gentlemen, and they
undoubtedly have weight; but that a specific matter of contagion has not
been detected by chemical means in the atmosphere of marshes does not
prove its non-existence. We know so little of those agents that affect
the human constitution, that it is of no use to reason on this subject.
There can be no doubt that the line of malaria above the Pontine marshes
is marked by a dense fog morning and evening, and most of the old Roman
towns were placed upon eminences out of the reach of this fog. I have
myself experienced a peculiar effect upon the organs of smell in the
neighbourhood of marshes in the evening after a very hot day; and the
instances in which people have been seized with intermittents by a single
exposure in a place infested by malaria in the season of fevers gives, I
think, a strong support to something like a poisonous material existing
in the atmosphere in such spots; but I merely offer doubts. I hope the
progress of physiology and of chemistry will at no very distant time
solve this important problem." Ambrosio now came forward, and bowing to
the stranger, said he took the liberty, as he saw from his familiarity
with the cicerone that he was well acquainted with Paestum, of asking him
whether the masses of travertine, of which the Cyclopean walls and the
temples were formed, were really produced by aqueous deposition from the
River Silaro, as he had often heard reported. The stranger replied,
"that they were certainly produced by deposition from water; and such
deposits are made by the Silaro. But I rather believe," he said, "that a
lake in the immediate neighbourhood of the city furnished the quarry from
which these stones were excavated; and, in half an hour, if you like,
after you have finished your examinations of the temples with your guide,
I will accompany you to the spot from which it is evident that large
masses of the travertine, marmor tiburtinum, or calcareous tufa, have
been raised." We thanked him for his attention, accepted his invitation,
took the usual walk round the temples, and returned to our new
acquaintance, who led the way through the gate of the city to the banks
of a pool or lake a short distance off. We walked to the borders on a
mass of calcareous tufa, and we saw that this substance had even
encrusted the reeds on the shore. There was something peculiarly
melancholy in the character of this water; all the herbs around it were
grey, as if encrusted with marble; a few buffaloes were slaking their
thirst in it, which ran wildly away on our approach, and appeared to
retire into a rocky excavation or quarry at the end of the lake; there
were a number of birds, which, on examination, I found were sea swallows,
flitting on the surface and busily employed with the libella or dragon-
fly in destroying the myriads of gnats which rose from the bottom and
were beginning to be very troublesome by their bites to us. "There,"
said the stranger, "is what I believe to be the source of those large and
durable stones which you see in the plain before you. This water rapidly
deposits calcareous matter, and even if you throw a stick into it, a few
hours is sufficient to give it a coating of this substance. Whichever
way you turn your eyes you see masses of this recently-produced marble,
the consequence of the overflowing of the lake during the winter floods,
and in that large excavation where you saw the buffaloes disappear you
may observe that immense masses have been removed, as if by the hand of
art and in remote times. The marble that remains in the quarry is of the
same texture and character as that which you see in the ruins of Paestum,
and I think it is scarcely possible to doubt that the builders of those
extraordinary structures derived a part of their materials from this
spot." Ambrosio gave his assent to this opinion of the stranger; and I
took the liberty of asking him as to the quantity of calcareous matter
contained in solution in the lake, saying that it appeared to me, for so
rapid and considerable an effect of deposition, there must be an unusual
quantity of solid matter dissolved by the water or some peculiar
circumstance of solution. The stranger replied, "This water is like
many, I may say most of the sources which rise at the foot of the
Apennines: it holds carbonic acid in solution which has dissolved a
portion of the calcareous matter of the rock through which it has passed.
This carbonic acid is dissipated in the atmosphere, and the marble,
slowly thrown down, assumes a crystalline form and produces coherent
stones. The lake before us is not particularly rich in the quantity of
calcareous matter that it contains, for, as I have found by experience, a
pint of it does not afford more than five or six grains; but the quantity
of fluid and the length of time are sufficient to account for the immense
quantities of tufa and rock which in the course of ages have accumulated
in this situation." Onuphrio's curiosity was excited by this statement
of the stranger, and he said, "May I take the liberty of asking if you
have any idea as to the cause of the large quantity of carbonic acid
which you have been so good as to inform us exists in most of the waters
in this country?" The stranger replied, "I certainly have formed an
opinion on this subject, which I willingly state to you. It can, I
think, be scarcely doubted that there is a source of volcanic fire at no
great distance from the surface in the whole of southern Italy; and, this
fire acting upon the calcareous rocks of which the Apennines are
composed, must constantly detach from them carbonic acid, which rising to
the sources of the springs, deposited from the waters of the atmosphere,
must give them their impregnation and enable them to dissolve calcareous
matter. I need not dwell upon Etna, Vesuvius, or the Lipari Islands to
prove that volcanic fires are still in existence; and there can be no
doubt that in earlier periods almost the whole of Italy was ravaged by
them; oven Rome itself, the eternal city, rests upon the craters of
extinct volcanoes; and I imagine that the traditional and fabulous record
of the destruction made by the conflagration of Phaeton in the chariot of
the sun and his falling into the Po had reference to a great and
tremendous igneous volcanic eruption, which extended over Italy and
ceased only near the Po at the foot of the Alps. Be this as it may, the
sources of carbonic acid are numerous, not merely in the Neapolitan, but
likewise in the Roman and Tuscan states. The most magnificent waterfall
in Europe, that of the Velino, near Terni, is partly fed by a stream
containing calcareous matter dissolved by carbonic acid, and it deposits
marble, which crystallises even in the midst of its thundering descent
and foam in the bed in which it falls. The Anio or Teverone, which
almost approaches in beauty to the Velino in the number and variety of
its falls and cascatelle, is likewise a calcareous water; and there is
still a more remarkable one which empties itself into this river below
Tivoli, and which you have probably seen in your excursions in the
campagna of Rome, called the lacus Albula or the lake of the Solfatara."
Ambrosio said, "We remember it well, we saw it this very spring; we were
carried there to examine some ancient Roman baths, and we were struck by
the blue milkiness of the water, by the magnitude of the source, and by
the disagreeable smell of sulphuretted hydrogen which everywhere
surrounded the lake." The stranger said, "When you return to Latium I
advise you to pay another visit to a spot which is interesting from a
number of causes, some of which I will take the liberty of mentioning to
you. You have only seen one lake, that where the ancient Romans erected
their baths, but there is another a few yards above it, surrounded by
very high rushes, and almost hidden by them from the sight. This lake
sends down a considerable stream of tepid water to the larger lake, but
this water is less strongly impregnated with carbonic acid; the largest
lake is actually a saturated solution of this gas, which escapes from it
in such quantities in some parts of its surface that it has the
appearance of being actually in ebullition. I have found by experiment
that the water taken from the most tranquil part of the lake, even after
being agitated and exposed to the air, contained in solution more than
its own volume of carbonic acid gas with a very small quantity of
sulphuretted hydrogen, to the presence of which, I conclude, its ancient
use in curing cutaneous disorders may be referred. Its temperature, I
ascertained, was in the winter in the warmest parts above 80 degrees of
Fahrenheit, and it appears to be pretty constant, for I have found it
differ a few degrees only, in the ascending source, in January, March,
May, and the beginning of June; it is therefore supplied with heat from a
subterraneous source, being nearly twenty degrees above the mean
temperature of the atmosphere. Kircher has detailed in his "Mundus
Subterraneus" various wonders respecting this lake, most of which are
unfounded, such as that it is unfathomable, that it has at the bottom the
heat of boiling water, and that floating islands rise from the gulf which
emits it. It must certainly be very difficult, or even impossible, to
fathom a source which rises with so much violence from a subterraneous
excavation, and, at a time when chemistry had made small progress, it was
easy to mistake the disengagement of carbonic acid for an actual
ebullition. The floating islands are real, but neither the Jesuit nor
any of the writers who have since described this lake had a correct idea
of their origin, which is exceedingly curious. The high temperature of
this water, and the quantity of carbonic acid that it contains, render it
peculiarly fitted to afford a pabulum or nourishment to vegetable life.
The banks of travertine are everywhere covered with reeds, lichens,
confervae, and various kinds of aquatic vegetables, and, at the same time
that the process of vegetable life is going on, the crystallisations of
the calcareous matter, which is everywhere deposited in consequence of
the escape of carbonic acid, likewise proceed, giving a constant
milkiness to what, from its tint, would otherwise be a blue fluid. So
rapid is the vegetation, owing to the decomposition of the carbonic acid,
that, even in winter, masses of confervae and lichens, mixed with
deposited travertine, are constantly detached by the currents of water
from the bank and float down the stream, which being a considerable river
is never without many of these small islands on its surface; they are
sometimes only a few inches in size, and composed merely of dark-green
confervae or purple or yellow lichens, but they are sometimes even of
some feet in diameter, and contain seeds and various species of common
water-plants, which are usually more or less encrusted with marble. There
is, I believe, no place in the world where there is a more striking
example of the opposition or contrast of the laws of animate and
inanimate Nature, of the forces of inorganic chemical affinity and those
of the powers of life. Vegetables in such a temperature, and everywhere
surrounded by food, are produced with a wonderful rapidity, but the
crystallisations are formed with equal quickness, and they are no sooner
produced than they are destroyed together. Notwithstanding the
sulphureous exhalations from the lake, the quantity of vegetable matter
generated there and its heat make it the resort of an infinite variety of
insect tribes, and even in the coldest days in winter numbers of flies
may be observed on the vegetables surrounding its banks or on its
floating island's, and a quantity of their larvae may be seen there
sometimes encrusted and entirely destroyed by calcareous matter, which is
likewise often the fate of the insects themselves, as well as of various
species of shell-fish that are found amongst the vegetables, which grow
and are destroyed in the travertine on its banks. Snipes, ducks, and
various water-birds, often visit those lakes, probably attracted by the
temperature and the quantity of food in which they abound; but they
usually confine themselves to the banks, as the carbonic acid disengaged
from the surface would be fatal to them if they ventured to swim upon it
when tranquil. In May, 18--, I fixed a stick on a mass of travertine
covered by the water, and I examined it in the beginning of the April
following for the purpose of determining the nature of the depositions.
The water was lower at this time, yet I had some difficulty, by means of
a sharp-pointed hammer, in breaking the mass which adhered to the bottom
of the stick; it was several inches in thickness. The upper part was a
mixture of light tufa and the leaves of confervae; below this was a
darker and more solid travertine, containing black and decomposed masses
of confervae; in the inferior part the travertine was more solid and of a
grey colour, but with cavities which I have no doubt were produced by the
decomposition of vegetable matter. I have passed many hours, I may say
many days, in studying the phenomena of this wonderful lake; it has
brought many trains of thought into my mind connected with the early
changes of our globe, and I have sometimes reasoned from the forms of
plants and animals preserved in marble in this warm source to the grander
depositions in the secondary rocks, where the zoophytes or coral insects
have worked upon a grand scale, and where palms, and vegetables now
unknown are preserved with the remains of crocodiles, turtles, and
gigantic extinct animals of the _sauri genus_, and which appear to have
belonged to a period when the whole globe possessed a much higher
temperature. I have, likewise, often been led, from the remarkable
phenomena surrounding me in that spot, to compare the works of man with
those of Nature. The baths, erected there nearly twenty centuries ago,
present only heaps of ruins, and even the bricks of which they were
built, though hardened by fire, are crumbled into dust, whilst the masses
of travertine around it, though formed by a variable source from the most
perishable materials, have hardened by time, and the most perfect remains
of the greatest ruins in the eternal city, such as the triumphal arches
and the Colosaeum, owe their duration to this source. Then, from all we
know, this lake, except in some change in its dimensions, continues
nearly in the same state in which it was described 1,700 years ago by
Pliny, and I have no doubt contains the same kinds of floating islands,
the same plants, and the same insects. During the fifteen years that I
have known it it has appeared precisely identical in these respects, and
yet it has the character of an accidental phenomenon depending upon
subterraneous fire. How marvellous then are those laws by which even the
humblest types of organic existence are preserved though born amidst the
sources of their destruction, and by which a species of immortality is
given to generations floating, as it were, like evanescent bubbles, on a
stream raised from the deepest caverns of the earth, and instantly losing
what may be called its spirit in the atmosphere." These last
observations of the stranger recalled to my recollection some phenomena
which I had observed many years ago, and of which I could then give no
satisfactory explanation. I was shooting in the marshes which surround
the ruins of Gabia, and where there are still remains supposed to be of
the Alexandrine aqueduct; I observed a small insulated hill, apparently
entirely composed of travertine, and from its summit there were
formations of tufa which had evidently been produced by running water,
but the whole mass was now perfectly dry and encrusted by vegetables. At
first I suspected that this little mountain had been formed by a jet of
calcareous water, a kind of small fountain analogous to the Geiser, which
had deposited travertine and continued to rise through the basin flowing
from a higher level; but the irregular form of the eminence did not
correspond to this idea, and I remained perplexed with the fact and
unable to satisfy myself as to its cause. The views of the stranger
appeared to me now to make it probable that the calcareous water had
issued from ancient leaks in the aqueduct and formed a hillock that had
encased the bricks of the erection, which in other parts, where not
encrusted by travertine, had become entirely decayed, degraded, and
removed from the soil. I mentioned the circumstance and my suspicion of
its nature. The stranger said: "You are perfectly correct in your idea.
I know the spot well, and if you had not mentioned it I should probably
have quoted it as an instance in which the works of art are preserved, as
it were, by the accidents of Nature. I was so struck by this appearance
last year that I had the travertine partially removed by some workmen,
and I found beneath it the canal of the aqueduct in a perfect state, and
the bricks of the arches as uninjured as if freshly laid." The stranger
had hardly concluded this sentence when he was interrupted by Onuphrio,
who said, "I have always supposed that in every geological system water
is considered as the cause of the destruction or degradation of the
surface, but in all the instances that you have mentioned it appears
rather as a conservative power, not destroying but rather producing." "It
is the general vice of philosophical systems," replied the stranger,
"that they are usually founded upon a few facts, which they well explain,
and are extended by the human fancy to all the phenomena of Nature, to
many of which they must be contradictory. The human intellectual powers
are so feeble that they can with difficulty embrace a single series of
phenomena, and they consequently must fail when extended to the whole of
Nature. Water by its common operation, as poured down from the
atmosphere in rain and torrents, tends to level and degrade the surface,
and carries the material of the land into the bosom of the ocean. Fire,
on the contrary, in volcanic eruptions usually raises mountains, exalts
the surface, and creates islands even in the midst of the sea. But these
laws are not invariable, as the instances to which we have just referred
prove, and parts of the surface of the globe are sometimes destroyed even
by fire, of which examples may be seen in the Phlegraean fields, and
islands raised by one volcanic eruption have been immerged in the sea by
another. There are, in fact, no accidents in Nature; what we call
accidents are the results of general laws in particular operation, but we
cannot deduce these laws from the particular operation or the general
order from the partial result." Ambrosio said to the stranger: "You
appear, sir, to have paid so much attention to physical phenomena that
few things would give us more pleasure than to know your opinion
respecting the early changes and physical history of the globe, for I
perceive you do not belong to the modern geological schools." The
stranger said, "I have certainly formed opinions or rather speculations
on these subjects, but I fear they are hardly worth communicating; they
have sometimes amused me in hours of idleness, but I doubt if they will
amuse others." I said, "The observations which you have already been so
kind as to communicate to us, on the formation of the travertine, lead us
not only to expect amusement but likewise instruction."
_The Stranger_.--On these matters I had facts to communicate; on the
geological scheme of the early history of the globe there are only
analogies to guide us, which different minds may apply and interpret in
different ways; but I will not trifle with a long preliminary discourse.
Astronomical deductions and actual measures by triangulation prove that
the globe is an oblate spheroid flattened at the poles, and this form we
know, by strict mathematical demonstrations, is precisely the one which a
fluid body revolving round its axis, and become solid at its surface by
the slow dissipation of its heat or other causes, would assume. I
suppose, therefore, that the globe, in the first state in which the
imagination can venture to consider it, was a fluid mass with an immense
atmosphere revolving in space round the sun, and that by its cooling a
portion of its atmosphere was condensed in water which occupied a part of
the surface. In this state no forms of life such as now belong to our
system could have inhabited it; and, I suppose, the crystalline rocks
(or, as they are called by geologists, the primary rocks), which contain
no vestiges of a former order of things, were the results of the first
consolidation on its surface. Upon the further cooling the water which
more or less had covered it contracted, depositions took place, shell-
fish and coral insects of the first creation began their labours, and
islands appeared in the midst of the ocean raised from the deep by the
productive energies of millions of zoophytes. Those islands became
covered with vegetables fitted to bear a high temperature, such as palms
and various species of plants similar to those which now exist in the
hottest parts of the world; and the submarine rocks or shores of these
new formations of land became covered with aquatic vegetables, on which
various species of shell-fish and common fishes found their nourishment.
The fluids of the globe in cooling deposited a large quantity of the
materials they held in solution, and these deposits agglutinating
together the sand, the immense masses of coral rocks, and some of the
remains of the shells and fishes found round the shores of the primitive
lands, produced the first order of secondary rocks. As the temperature
of the globe became lower, species of the oviparous reptiles were created
to inhabit it; and the turtle, crocodile, and various gigantic animals of
the sauri kind, seem to have haunted the bays and waters of the primitive
lands. But in this state of things there was no order of events similar
to the present; the crust of the globe was exceedingly slender, and the
source of fire a small distance from the surface. In consequence of
contraction in one part of the mass, cavities were opened, which caused
the entrance of water, and immense volcanic explosions took place,
raising one part of the surface, depressing another, producing mountains,
and causing new and extensive depositions from the primitive ocean.
Changes of this kind must have been extremely frequent in the early
epochas of nature, and the only living forms of which the remains are
found in the strata that are the monuments of these changes, are those of
plants, fishes, birds, and oviparous reptiles, which seem most fitted to
exist in such a war of the elements. When these revolutions became less
frequent, and the globe became still more cooled, and the inequalities of
its temperature preserved by the mountain chains, more perfect animals
became its inhabitants, many of which, such as the mammoth, megalonix,
megatherium, and gigantic hyena, are now extinct. At this period the
temperature of the ocean seems to have been not much higher than it is at
present, and the changes produced by occasional eruptions of it have left
no consolidated rocks. Yet one of these eruptions appears to have been
of great extent and some duration, and seems to have been the cause of
those immense quantities of water-worn stones, gravel and sand, which are
usually called diluvian remains; and it is probable that this effect was
connected with the elevation of a new continent in the southern
hemisphere by volcanic fire. When the system of things became so
permanent that the tremendous revolutions depending upon the destruction
of the equilibrium between the heating and cooling agencies were no
longer to be dreaded, the creation of man took place; and since that
period there has been little alteration in the physical circumstances of
our globe. Volcanoes sometimes occasion the rise of new islands,
portions of the old continent are constantly washed by rivers into the
sea; but these changes are too insignificant to affect the destinies of
man, or the nature of the physical circumstances of things. On the
hypothesis that I have adopted, however, it must be remembered that the
present surface of the globe is merely a thin crust surrounding a nucleus
of fluid ignited matter, and consequently we can hardly be considered as
actually safe from the danger of a catastrophe by fire.
Onuphrio said: "From the view you have taken, I conclude that you
consider volcanic eruptions as owing to the central fire; indeed, their
existence offers, I think, an argument for believing that the interior of
the globe is fluid." The stranger answered: "I beg you to consider the
views I have been developing as merely hypothetical, one of the many
resting places that may be taken by the imagination in considering this
subject. There are, however, distinct facts in favour of the idea that
the interior of the globe has a higher temperature than the surface; the
heat increasing in mines the deeper we penetrate, and the number of warm
sources which rise from great depths in almost all countries, are
certainly favourable to the idea. The opinion that volcanoes are owing
to this general and simple cause is, I think, likewise more agreeable to
the analogies of things than to suppose them dependent upon partial
chemical changes, such as the action of air and water upon the
combustible bases of the earths and alkalies, though it is extremely
probable that these substances may exist beneath the surface, and may
occasion some results of volcanic fire; and on this subject my notion
may, perhaps, be more trusted, as for a long while I thought volcanic
eruptions were owing to chemical agencies of the newly discovered metals
of the earths and alkalies, and I made many, and some dangerous,
experiments in the hope of confirming this notion, but in vain."
_Amb_.--We are very much obliged to you for your geological
illustrations; but they remind me a little of some of the ideas of our
friend Philalethes in his remarkable vision, and with which we may at
some time amuse you in return for your geology should we be honoured with
more of your company. You are obliged to have recourse to creations for
all the living beings in your philosophical romance. I do not see why
you should not suppose creations or arrangements of dead matter by the
same laws of infinite wisdom, and why our globe should not rise at once a
divine work fitted for all the objects of living and intelligent natures.
The stranger replied: "I have merely attempted a philosophical history
founded upon the facts known respecting rocks and strata and the remains
they contain. I begin with what may be considered a creation, a fluid
globe supplied with an immense atmosphere, and the series of phenomena
which I imagine consequent to the creation, I supposed produced by powers
impressed upon matter by Omnipotence."
Ambrosio said: "There is this verisimility in your history, that it is
not contradictory to the little we are informed by Revelation as to the
origin of the globe, the order produced in the chaotic state, and the
succession of living forms generated in the days of creation, which may
be what philosophers call the 'epochas of nature,' for a day with
Omnipotence is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."
"I must object," Onuphrio said, "to your interpretation of the scientific
view of our new acquaintance, and to your disposition to blend them with
the cosmogony of Moses. Allowing the divine origin of the Book of
Genesis, you must admit that it was not intended to teach the Jews
systems of philosophy, but the laws of life and morals; and a great man
and an exalted Christian raised his voice two centuries ago against this
mode of applying and of often wresting the sense of the Scriptures to
make them conformable to human fancies; 'from which,' says Lord Bacon,
'arise not only false and fantastical philosophies, but likewise
heretical religions.' If the Scriptures are to be literally interpreted
and systems of science found in them, Gallileo Gallilei merited his
persecution, and we ought still to believe that the sun turns round the
earth."
_Amb_.--You mistake my view, Onuphrio, if you imagine I am desirous of
raising a system of geology on the Book of Genesis. It cannot be doubted
that the first man was created with a great variety of instinctive or
inspired knowledge, which must have been likewise enjoyed by his
descendants; and some of this knowledge could hardly fail to have related
to the globe which he inhabited, and to the objects which surrounded him.
It would have been impossible for the human mind to have embraced the
mysteries of creation, or to have followed the history of the moving
atoms from their chaotic disorder into their arrangement in the visible
universe, to have seen dead matter assuming the forms of life and
animation, and light and power arising out of death and sleep. The ideas
therefore transmitted to or presented by Moses respecting the origin of
the world and of man were of the most simple kind, and such as suited the
early state of society; but, though general and simple truths, they were
divine truths, yet clothed in a language and suited to the ideas of a
rude and uninstructed people. And, when I state my satisfaction in
finding that they are not contradicted by the refined researches of
modern geologists, I do not mean to deduce from them a system of science.
I believe that light was the creation of an act of the Divine will; but I
do not mean to say that the words, "Let there be light, and there was
light," were orally spoken by the Deity, nor do I mean to imply that the
modern discoveries respecting light are at all connected with this
sublime and magnificent passage.
_Onu_.--Having resided for a long time in Edinburgh, and having heard a
number of discussions on the theory of Dr. Hutton, or the plutonic theory
of geology, and having been exceedingly struck both by its simplicity and
beauty, its harmony with existing facts, and the proofs afforded to it by
some beautiful chemical experiments, I do not feel disposed immediately
to renounce it for the views which I have just heard explained; for the
principal facts which our new acquaintance has stated are, I think, not
inconsistent with the refined philosophical systems of Professor Playfair
and Sir James Hall.
_The Unknown_.--I have no objection to the refined plutonic view, as
capable of explaining many existing phenomena; indeed, you must be aware
that I have myself had recourse to it. What I contend against is, its
application to explain the formations of the secondary rocks, which I
think clearly belong to an order of facts not at all embraced by it. In
the plutonic system there is one simple and constant order assumed, which
may be supposed eternal. The surface is constantly imagined to be
disintegrated, destroyed, degraded, and washed into the bosom of the
ocean by water, and as constantly consolidated, elevated, and regenerated
by fire, and the ruins of the old form the foundations of the new world.
It is supposed that there are always the same types, both of dead and
living matter; that the remains of rocks, of vegetables, and animals of
one age are found embedded in rocks raised from the bottom of the ocean
in another. Now, to support this view, not only the remains of living
beings which at present people the globe might be expected to be found in
the oldest secondary strata, but even those of the arts of man, the most
powerful and populous of its inhabitants, which is well known not to be
the case. On the contrary, each stratum of the secondary rocks contains
remains of peculiar and mostly now unknown species of vegetables and
animals. In those strata which are deepest, and which must consequently
be supposed to be the earliest deposited, forms even of vegetable life
are rare; shells and vegetable remains are found in the next order; the
bones of fishes and oviparous reptiles exist in the following class; the
remains of birds, with those of the same genera mentioned before, in the
next order; those of quadrupeds of extinct species, in a still more
recent class; and it is only in the loose and slightly consolidated
strata of gravel and sand, and which are usually called diluvian
formations, that the remains of animals such as now people the globe are
found, with others belonging to extinct species. But in none of these
formations, whether called secondary, tertiary, or diluvial, have the
remains of man or any of his works been discovered. It is, I think,
impossible to consider the organic remains found in any of the earlier
secondary strata, the lias-limestone and its congenerous formations for
instance, without being convinced that the beings, whose organs they
formed, belonged to an order of things entirely different from the
present. Gigantic vegetables, more nearly allied to the palms of the
equatorial countries than to any other plants, can only be imagined to
have lived in a very high temperature; and the immense reptiles, the
megalosauri with paddles instead of legs and clothed in mail, in size
equal or even superior to the whale; and the great amphibia,
plethiosauri, with bodies like turtles, but furnished with necks longer
than their bodies, probably to enable them to feed on vegetables growing
in the shallows of the primitive ocean, seem to show a state in which low
lands or extensive shores rose above an immense calm sea, and when there
were no great mountain, chains to produce inequalities of temperature,
tempests, or storms. Were the surface of the earth now to be carried
down into the depths of the ocean, or were some great revolution of the
waters to cover the existing land, and it was again to be elevated by
fire, covered with consolidated depositions of sand or mud, how entirely
different would it be in its characters from any of the secondary strata.
Its great features would undoubtedly be the works of man--hewn stones,
and statues of bronze and marble, and tools of iron--and human remains
would be more common than those of animals on the greatest part of the
surface; the columns of Paestum or of Agrigentum, or the immense iron and
granite bridges of the Thames, would offer a striking contrast to the
bones of the crocodiles or sauri in the older rocks, or even to those of
the mammoth or elephas primogenius in the diluvial strata. And whoever
dwells upon this subject must be convinced that the present order of
things, and the comparatively recent existence of man as the master of
the globe, is as certain as the destruction of a former and a different
order and the extinction of a number of living forms which have now no
types in being, and which have left their remains wonderful monuments of
the revolutions of Nature.
_Onu_.--I am not quite convinced by your arguments. Supposing the lands
of New Holland were to be washed into the depths of the ocean, and to be
raised according to the Huttonian view, as a secondary stratum, by
subterraneous fire, they would contain the remains of both vegetables and
animals entirely different from any found in the strata of the old
continents; and may not those peculiar formations to which you have
referred be, as it were, accidents of Nature belonging to peculiar parts
of the globe? And you speak of a diluvian formation, which I conclude
you would identify with that belonging to the catastrophe described in
the sacred writings, in which no human remains are found. Now, you
surely will not deny that man existed at the time of this catastrophe,
and he consequently may have existed at the period of the other
revolutions, which are supposed to be produced in the Huttonian views by
subterraneous fire.
_The Unknown_.--I have made use of the term "diluvian," because it has
been adopted by geologists, but without meaning to identify the cause of
the formations with the deluge described in the sacred writings. I apply
the term merely to signify loose and water-worn strata not at all
consolidated, and deposited by an inundation of water, and in these
countries which they have covered man certainly did not exist. With
respect to your argument derived from New Holland, it appears to me to be
without weight. In a variety of climates, and in very distant parts of
the globe, secondary strata of the same order are found, and they contain
always the same kind of organic remains, which are entirely different
from any of those now afforded by beings belonging to the existing order
of things. The catastrophes which produced the secondary strata and
diluvian depositions could not have been local and partial phenomena, but
must have extended over the whole, or a great part of the surface, of the
globe. The remains of similar shell-fishes are found in the limestones
of the old and new continents; the teeth of the mammoth are not uncommon
in various parts of Europe; entire skeletons have been found in America,
and even the skin covered with hair and the entire body of one of these
enormous extinct animals has been discovered in Siberia preserved in a
mass of ice. In the oldest secondary strata there are no remains of such
animals as now belong to the surface; and in the rocks which may be
regarded as more recently deposited, these remains occur but rarely, and
with abundance of extinct species. There seems, as it were, a gradual
approach to the present system of things, and a succession of
destructions and creations preparatory to the existence of man. It will
be useless to push these arguments farther. You must allow that it is
impossible to defend the proposition, that the present order of things is
the ancient and constant order of Nature, only modified by existing laws,
and, consequently, the view which you have supported must be abandoned.
The monuments of extinct generations of animals are as perfect as those
of extinct nations; and it would be more reasonable to suppose that the
pillars and temples of Palmyra were raised by the wandering Arabs of the
desert, than to imagine that the vestiges of peculiar animated forms in
the strata beneath the surface belonged to the early and infant families
of the beings that at present inhabit it.
_Onu_.--I am convinced. I shall push my arguments no further, for I will
not support the sophisms of that school which supposes that living nature
has undergone gradual changes by the effects of its irritabilities and
appetencies; that the fish has in millions of generations ripened into
the quadruped, and the quadruped into the man; and that the system of
life by its own inherent powers has fitted itself to the physical changes
in the system of the universe. To this absurd, vague, atheistical
doctrine, I prefer even the dream of plastic powers, or that other more
modern dream, that the secondary strata were created, filled with
remains, as it were, of animal life, to confound the speculations of our
geological reasoners.
_The Unknown_.--I am glad you have not retreated into the desert and
defenceless wilderness of scepticism, or of false and feeble philosophy.
I should not have thought it worth my while to have followed you there; I
should as soon think of arguing with the peasant who informs me that the
basaltic columns of Antrim or of Staffa were the works of human art and
raised by the giant Finmacoul.
At this moment, one of our servants came to inform me that a dinner which
had been preparing for us at the farmhouse was ready; we asked the
stranger to do us the honour to partake of our repast; he assented, and
the following conversation took place at table.
_Phil_.--In reflecting upon our discussions this morning, I cannot help
being a little surprised at their nature; we have been talking only of
geological systems, when a more natural subject for our conversation
would have been these magnificent temples, and an inquiry into the race
by whom they were raised and the gods to whom they wore dedicated. We
are now treading on a spot which contains the bones of a highly civilised
and powerful people; yet we are almost ignorant of the names they bore,
and the period of their greatness is lost in the obscurity of time.
_Amb_.--There can be no doubt that the early inhabitants of this city
were Grecians and a maritime and commercial people; they have been
supposed to belong to the Sybarite race, and the roses producing flowers
twice a year in the spring and autumn in ancient times here, might
sanction the idea that this balmy spot was chosen by a colony who carried
luxury and refinement to the highest pitch.
_Onu_.--To attempt to form any opinion with respect to the people that
anciently inhabited these now deserted plains is useless and a vain
labour. In the geological conversation which took place before dinner,
some series of interesting facts were presented to us; and the monuments
of Nature, though they do not speak a distinct language, yet speak an
intelligible one; but with respect to Paestum, there is neither history
nor tradition to guide us; and we shall do wisely to resume our
philosophical inquiries, if we have not already exhausted the patience of
our new guest by doubts or objections to his views.
_The Stranger_.--One of you referred in our conversation this morning to
a vision, which had some relation to the subject of our discussion, and I
was promised some information on this matter.
I immediately gave a sketch of my vision, and of the opinions which had
been expressed by Ambrosio on the early history of man, and the
termination of our discussions on religion.
_The Stranger_.--I agree with Ambrosio in opinion on the subjects you
have just mentioned. In my youth, I was a sceptic; and this I believe is
usually the case with young persons given to general and discursive
reading, and accustomed to adopt something like a mathematical form in
their reasonings; and it was in considering the nature of the
intellectual faculties of brutes, as compared with those of man, and in
examining the nature of instinctive powers, that I became a believer.
After I had formed the idea that Revelation was to man in the place of an
instinct, my faith constantly became stronger; and it was exalted by many
circumstances I had occasion to witness in a journey that I made through
Egypt and a part of Asia Minor, and by no one more than by a very
remarkable dream which occurred to me in Palestine, and which, as we are
now almost at the hour of the siesta, I will relate to you, though
perhaps you will be asleep before I have finished it. I was walking
along that deserted shore which contains the ruins of Ptolemais, one of
the most ancient ports of Judaea. It was evening; the sun was sinking in
the sea; I seated myself on a rock, lost in melancholy contemplations on
the destinies of a spot once so famous in the history of man. The calm
Mediterranean, bright in the glowing light of the west, was the only
object before me. "These waves," I said to myself, "once bore the ships
of the monarch of Jerusalem which were freighted with the riches of the
East to adorn and honour the sanctuary of Jehovah; here are now no
remains of greatness or of commerce; a few red stones and broken bricks
only mark what might have been once a flourishing port, and the citadel
above, raised by the Saracens, is filled with Turkish soldiers." The
janissary, who was my guide, and my servant, were preparing some food for
me in a tent which had been raised for the purpose, and whilst waiting
for their summons to my repast, I continued my reveries, which must
gradually have ended in slumber. I saw a man approaching towards me,
whom, at first, I took for my janissary, but as he came nearer I found a
very different figure. He was a very old man with a beard as white as
snow; his countenance was dark but paler than that of an Arab, and his
features stern, wild, and with a peculiar savage expression; his form was
gigantic, but his arms were withered and there was a large scar on the
left side of his face which seemed to have deprived him of an eye. He
wore a black turban and black flowing robes, and there was a large chain
round his waist which clanked as he moved. It occurred to me that he was
one of the santons or sacred madmen so common in the East, and I retired
as he approached towards me. He called out: "Fly not, stranger; fear me
not, I will not harm you. You shall hear my story, it may be useful to
you." He spoke in Arabic but in a peculiar dialect and to me new, yet I
understood every word. "You see before you," he said, "a man who was
educated a Christian, but who renounced the worship of the one supreme
God for the superstitions of the pagans. I became an apostate in the
reign of the Emperor Julian, and I was employed by that Sovereign to
superintend the re-erection of the temple of Jerusalem, by which it was
intended to belie the prophecies and give the deathblow to the holy
religion. History has informed you of the result: my assistants were
most of them destroyed in a tremendous storm, I was blasted by lightning
from heaven (he raised his withered hand to his face and eye), but
suffered to live and expiate my crime in the flesh. My life has been
spent in constant and severe penance, and in that suffering of the spirit
produced by guilt, and is to be continued as long as any part of the
temple of Jupiter, in which I renounced my faith, remains in this place.
I have lived through fifteen tedious centuries, but I trust in the
mercies of Omnipotence, and I hope my atonement is completed. I now
stand in the dust of the pagan temple. You have just thrown the last
fragment of it over the rock. My time is arrived, I come!" As he spake
the last words, he rushed towards the sea, threw himself from the rock
and disappeared. I heard no struggling, and saw nothing but a gleam of
light from the wave that closed above him. I was now roused by the cries
of my servant and of the janissary, who were shaking my arm, and who
informed me that my sleep was so sound that they were alarmed for me.
When I looked on the sea, there was the same light, and I seemed to see
the very spot in the wave where the old man had sunk. I was so struck by
the vision, that I asked if they had not seen something dash into the
wave, and if they had not heard somebody speaking to me as they arrived.
Of course their answers were negative. In passing through Jerusalem and
in coasting the Dead Sea I had been exceedingly struck by the present
state of Judaea and the conformity of the fate of the Jewish nation to
the predictions of our Saviour; I had likewise been reading Gibbon's
eulogy of Julian, and his account of the attempts made by that Emperor to
rebuild the temple: so that the dream at such a time and in such a place
was not an unnatural occurrence. Yet it was so vivid, and the image of
the subject of it so peculiar, that it long affected my imagination, and
whenever I recurred to it, strengthened my faith.
_Onu_.--I believe all the narratives of apparitions and ghost stories are
founded upon dreams of the same kind as that which occurred to you: an
ideal representation of events in the local situation, in which the
person is at the moment, and when the imaginary picture of the place in
sleep exactly coincides with its reality in waking.
_The Stranger_.--I agree with you in your opinion. If my servant had not
been with me, and my dream had been a little less improbable, it would
have been difficult to have persuaded me that I had not been visited by
an apparition.
I mentioned the dream of Brutus, and said, "His supposed evil genius
appeared in his tent; had the philosophical hero dreamt that his genius
had appeared to him in Rome, there could have been no delusion." I cited
the similar vision, recorded of Dion before his death, by Plutarch, of a
gigantic female, one of the fates or furies, who was supposed to have
been seen by him when reposing in the portico of his palace. I referred
likewise to my own vision of the beautiful female, the guardian angel of
my recovery, who always seemed to me to be present at my bedside.
_Amb_.--In confirmation of this opinion of Onuphrio, I can mention many
instances. I once dreamt that my door had been forced, that there were
robbers in my room, and that one of them was actually putting his hand
before my mouth to ascertain if I was sleeping naturally. I awoke at
this moment, and was some minutes before I could be sure whether it was a
dream or a reality. I felt the pressure of the bedclothes on my lips,
and still in the fear of being murdered continued to keep my eyes closed
and to breathe slowly, till, hearing nothing and finding no motion, I
ventured to open my eyes; but even then, when I saw nothing, I was not
sure that my impression was a dream till I had risen from my bed and
ascertained that the door was still locked.
_Onu_.--I am the only one of the party unable to record any dreams of the
vivid and peculiar nature you mention from my own experience; I conclude
it is owing to the dulness of my imagination. I suppose the more intense
power of reverie is a symptom of the poetical temperament; and perhaps,
if I possessed more enthusiasm, I should always have possessed more of
the religious instinct. To adopt the idea of Philalethes of hereditary
character, I fear my forefathers have not been correct in their faith.
_Amb_.--Your glory will be greater in establishing a new character, and I
trust even the conversation of this day has given you an additional
reason to adopt _our_ faith.
Ambrosio spoke these words with an earnestness unusual in him, and with
something of a tone which marked a zeal for proselytism, and at the same
time he cast his eyes on the rosary which was suspended round the neck of
the stranger, and said, "I hope I am not indiscreet in saying _our_
faith."
_The Stranger_.--I was educated in the ritual of the church of England; I
belong to the Church of Christ; the rosary which you see suspended round
my neck is a memorial of sympathy and respect for an illustrious man. I
will, if you will allow me, give you the history of it, which, I think
from the circumstances with which it is connected, you will not find
devoid of interest. I was passing through France in the reign of
Napoleon, by the peculiar privilege granted to a scavan, on my road into
Italy. I had just returned from the Holy Land, and had in my possession
two or three of the rosaries which are sold to pilgrims at Jerusalem as
having been suspended in the Holy Sepulchre. Pius VII. was then in
imprisonment at Fontainebleau. By a special favour, on the plea of my
return from the Holy Land, I obtained permission to see this venerable
and illustrious Pontiff. I carried with me one of my rosaries. He
received me with great kindness. I tendered my services to execute any
commissions, not political ones, he might think fit to entrust me with in
Italy, informing him that I was an Englishman. He expressed his thanks,
but declined troubling me. I told him I was just returned from the Holy
Land, and bowing with great humility, offered to him my rosary from the
Holy Sepulchre. He received it with a smile, touched it with his lips,
gave his benediction over it, and returned it into my hands, supposing,
of course, that I was a Roman Catholic. I had meant to present it to his
Holiness, but the blessing he had bestowed upon it and the touch of his
lips, made it a precious relic to me and I restored it to my neck, round
which it has ever since been suspended. He asked me some unimportant
questions respecting the state of the Christians at Jerusalem; and on a
sudden, turned the subject, much to my surprise, to the destruction of
the French in Russia, and in an exceedingly low tone of voice, as if
afraid of being overheard, he said, "The _nefas_ has long been triumphant
over the _fas_, but I do not doubt that the balance of things is even now
restoring; that God will vindicate his Church, clear his polluted altars,
and establish society upon its permanent basis of justice and faith. We
shall meet again. Adieu!" and he gave me his paternal blessing. It was
eighteen months after this interview, that I went out with almost the
whole population of Rome, to receive and welcome the triumphal entry of
this illustrious father of the Church into his capital. He was borne on
the shoulders of the most distinguished artists, headed by Canova; and
never shall I forget the enthusiasm with which he was received--it is
impossible to describe the shouts of triumph and of rapture sent up to
heaven by every voice. And when he gave his benediction to the people,
there was an universal prostration, a sobbing and marks of emotions of
joy almost like the bursting of the heart. I heard, everywhere around
me, cries of "The holy Father! The most holy Father! His restoration is
the work of God!" I saw tears streaming from the eyes of almost all the
women about me, many of them were sobbing hysterically, and old men were
weeping as if they had been children. I pressed my rosary to my breast
on this occasion, and repeatedly touched with my lips that part of it
which had received the kiss of the most venerable Pontiff. I preserve it
with a kind of hallowed feeling, as the memorial of a man whose sanctity,
firmness, meekness and benevolence are an honour to his Church and to
human nature; and it has not only been useful to me, by its influence
upon my own mind, but it has enabled me to give pleasure to others, and
has, I believe, been sometimes beneficial in insuring my personal safety.
I have often gratified the peasants of Apulia and Calabria by presenting
them to kiss a rosary from the Holy Sepulchre which had been hallowed by
the touch of the lips and benediction of the Pope; and it has been even
respected by and procured me a safe passage through a party of brigands
who once stopped me in the passes of the Apennines.
_Onu_.--The use you have made of this relic puts me in mind of a device
of a very ingenious geological philosopher now living. He was on Etna
and busily employed in making a collection of the lavas formed from the
igneous currents of that mountain; the peasants were often troublesome to
him, suspecting that he was searching for treasures. It occurred to him
to make the following speech to them: "I have been a great sinner in my
youth and, as a penance, I have made a vow to carry away with me pieces
of every kind of stone found upon the mountain; permit me quietly to
perform my pious duty, that I may receive absolution for my sins." The
speech produced the desired effect; the peasants shouted, "The holy man!
The saint!" and gave him every assistance in their power to enable him to
carry off his burthen, and he made his ample collections with the utmost
security and in the most agreeable manner.
_The Stranger_.--I do not approve of pious frauds even for philosophical
purposes; my rosary excited in others the same kind of feeling which it
excited in my own bosom, and which I hold to be perfectly justifiable,
and of which I shall never be ashamed.
_Amb_.--You must have travelled in Italy in very dangerous times; have
you always been secure?
_The Stranger_.--Always; I have owed my security, partly, as I have said,
to my rosary, but more to my dress and my acquaintance with the dialect
of the natives. I have always carried with me a peasant as a guide, who
has been intrusted with the small sums of money I wanted for my immediate
purposes, and my baggage has been little more than a Cynic philosopher
would have carried with him; and when I have been unable to walk, I have
trusted myself to the conduct of a vetturino, a native of the province,
with his single mule and caratella.
The sun was now setting and the temple of Neptune was glowing with its
last purple rays. We were informed that our horses were waiting, and
that it was time for us to depart to our lodgings at Eboli. I asked the
stranger to be our companion and to do us the honour to accept of a seat
in our carriage. He declined the invitation, and said: "My bed is
prepared in the casina here for this night, and to-morrow I proceed on a
journey connected with scientific objects in the parts of Calabria the
scene of the terrible earthquakes of 1783." I held out my hand to him in
parting; he gave it a strong and warm pressure, and said, "Adieu! we
shall meet again."