Pompeii, which is situated at a much greater distance from the Volcano than Herculaneum, has felt the effects of a single eruption only; it is covered with white pumice stones, mixed with fragments of lava and burnt matter, large and small: the pumice is very light; but I have found some of the fragments of lava and cinders there, weighing eight pounds. I have often wondered, that such weighty bodies could have been carried to such a distance (for Pompeii cannot be less than five miles, in a strait line, from the mouth of Vesuvius). Every observation confirms the fall of this horrid shower over the unfortunate city of Pompeii, and that few of its inhabitants had dared to venture out of their houses; for in many of those which have been already cleared, skeletons have been found, some with gold rings, ear rings, and bracelets. I have been present at the discovery of several human skeletons myself; and under a vaulted arch, about two years ago, at Pompeii, I saw the bones of a man and a horse taken up, with the fragments of the horse's furniture, which had been ornamented with false gems set in bronze. The skulls of some of the skeletons found in the streets had been evidently fractured by the fall of the stones. His Sicilian Majesty's excavations are confined to this spot at present; and the curious in antiquity may expect hereafter, from so rich a mine, ample matter for their dissertations: but I will confine myself to such observations only as relate to my present subject. Over the stratum of pumice and burnt matter that covers Pompeii, there is a stratum of good mould, of the thickness of about two feet and more in some parts, in which vines flourish, except in some particular spots of this vineyard, where they are subject to be blasted by a foul vapour, or _mofete_, as it is called here, that rises from beneath the burnt matter. The abovementioned shower of pumice stones, according to my observations, extended beyond Castel-a-mare (near which spot the ancient town of Stabia also lies buried under them) and covered a tract of country not less than thirty miles in circumference. It was at Stabia that Pliny the elder lost his life, and this shower of pumice stones is well described in the younger Pliny's letter. Little of the matter that has issued from Vesuvius since that time, has reached these parts: but I must observe, that the pavement of the streets of Pompeii is of lava; nay, under the foundation of the town, there is a deep stratum of lava and burnt matter. These circumstances, with many others that will be related hereafter, prove, beyond a doubt, that there have been eruptions of Vesuvius previous to that of the year 79, which is the first recorded by history.