This great catastrophe gave the Emperor Titus a fine opportunity for displaying the benevolence which entitled him to be called ‘the delight of mankind.’ He immediately hastened to the scene of destruction, appointed guardians of consular rank to distribute among the needy survivors the property of those who had perished without heirs; and encouraged the weak-hearted, assisting them by liberal donations, until a no less terrible misfortune recalled him to Rome, where a fire, which laid almost half the town in ashes, was followed by a plague, which, for some time, daily swept away thousands. It has often been asked how so many of the relics buried in Herculaneum and Pompeii could have been so perfectly preserved as to form a Museum of the Past for the admiration and instruction of future ages. A stream of lava would undoubtedly have consumed everything on its fiery track, but, fortunately for posterity, it was not a flood of molten stone, but a current of mud which overwhelmed the devoted cities. We learn from history that a heavy shower of sand, pumice, and lapilli was ejected by Vesuvius for eight successive days and nights, in the year 79, accompanied by violent rains, and thus all these volcanic matters were converted into mud-streams, which, rushing down the sides of the mountain, descended upon Herculaneum and Pompeii. This circumstance satisfactorily explains how the _interior_ of the buildings, with all the underground vaults and cellars, was filled up, and how all the objects they contained could be as perfectly moulded as in a plaster cast by the muddy alluvium, which subsequently hardened into pumice tuff. Hence this wonderful preservation of paintings, which, shielded from the destructive influence of the atmosphere, still retained their original freshness of colour when again brought to light by a late generation; these rolls of papyrus which it has been found possible to decipher; this perfect cast of a woman’s form, with a child in her arms! No lava has flowed over Pompeii since that city was buried, but with Herculaneum the case is different. Although the substance which fills the interior of the buildings in that doomed city must have been introduced in a state of mud like that found in similar situations in Pompeii, yet the superincumbent mass differs wholly in composition and thickness. Herculaneum was situated several miles nearer to the volcano, and has, therefore, been always more liable to be covered, not only by showers of ashes, but by alluvium and streams of lava. Accordingly, masses of both have accumulated on each other above the ancient site of the city, to a depth of nowhere less than 70, and in many places of 112 feet; while the depth of the bed of ashes under which Pompeii lies buried seldom exceeds 12 or 14 feet above the houses, and it is even said that the higher part of the amphitheatre always projected above the surface.