One often hears of writers that rise and swell with their subject, though it may seem but an ordinary one. How, then, with me, writing of this Leviathan? Unconsciously my chirography expands into placard capitals. Give me a condor's quill! Give me Vesuvius' crater for an inkstand! Friends, hold my arms! For in the mere act of penning my thoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with their outreaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole circle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas of empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding its suburbs. Such, and so magnifying, is the virtue of a large and liberal theme! We expand to its bulk. To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.
BUCH, CHRISTIAN LEOPOLD VON, BARON (1774-1853), German geologist and geographer, a member of an ancient and noble Prussian family, was born at Stolpe in Pomerania on the 26th of April 1774. In 1790-1793 he studied at the mining school of Freiberg under Werner, one of his fellow-students there being Alexander von Humboldt. He afterwards completed his education at the universities of Halle and Göttingen. His _Versuch einer mineralogischen Beschreibung von Landeck_ (Breslau, 1797) was translated into French (Paris, 1805), and into English as _Attempt at a Mineralogical Description of Landeck_ (Edinburgh, 1810); he also published in 1802 _Entwurf einer geognostischen Beschreibung von Schlesien (Geognostische Beobachtungen auf Reisen durch Deutschland und Italien_, Band i.). He was at this time a zealous upholder of the Neptunian theory of his illustrious master. In 1797 he met Humboldt at Salzburg, and with him explored the geological formations of Styria, and the adjoining Alps. In the spring of the following year, von Buch extended his excursions into Italy, where his faith in the Neptunian theory was shaken. In his previous works he had advocated the aqueous origin of basaltic and other formations. In 1799 he paid his first visit to Vesuvius, and again in 1805 he returned to study the volcano, accompanied by Humboldt and Gay Lussac. They had the good fortune to witness a remarkable eruption, which supplied von Buch with data for refuting many erroneous ideas then entertained regarding volcanoes. In 1802 he had explored the extinct volcanoes of Auvergne. The aspect of the Puy de Dôme, with its cone of trachyte and its strata of basaltic lava, induced him to abandon as untenable the doctrines of Werner on the formation of these rocks. The scientific results of his investigations he embodied in his _Geognostische Beobachtungen auf Reisen durch Deutschland und Italien_ (Berlin, 1802-1809). From the south of Europe von Buch repaired to the north, and spent two years among the Scandinavian islands, making many important observations on the geography of plants, on climatology and on geology. He showed that many of the erratic blocks on the North German plains must have come from Scandinavia. He also established the fact that the whole of Sweden is slowly but continuously rising above the level of the sea from Frederikshald to Abo. The details of these discoveries are given in his _Reise durch Norwegen und Lappland_ (Berlin, 1810). In 1815 he visited the Canary Islands in company with Christian Smith, the Norwegian botanist. His observations here convinced him that these and other islands of the Atlantic owed their existence to volcanic action of the most intense kind, and that the groups of islands in the South Sea are the remains of a pre-existing continent. The physical description of the Canary Islands was published at Berlin in 1825, and this work alone is regarded as an enduring monument of his labours. After leaving the Canaries von Buch proceeded to the Hebrides and the coasts of Scotland and Ireland. Palaeontology also claimed his attention, and he described in 1831 and later years a number of Cephalopods, Brachiopods and Cystidea, and pointed out their stratigraphical importance. In addition to the works already mentioned von Buch published in 1832 the magnificent _Geological Map of Germany_ (42 sheets, Berlin). His geological excursions were continued without interruption till his 78th year. Eight months before his death he visited [v.04 p.0659] the mountains of Auvergne; and on returning home he read a paper on the Jurassic formation before the Academy of Berlin. He died at Berlin on the 4th of March 1853. Von Buch had inherited from his father a fortune more than sufficient for his wants. He was never married, and was unembarrassed by family ties. His excursions were always taken on foot, with a staff in his hand, and the large pockets of his overcoat filled with papers and geological instruments. Under this guise, the passer-by would not easily have recognized the man whom Humboldt pronounced the greatest geologist of his time. Entry: BUCH
Pozzuoli (anc. Puteoli), the most important harbour of Italy in the 1st century B.C., is now mainly noticeable for the large armour-plate and gun works of Messrs Armstrong, and for the volcanic earth (_pozzolana_) which forms so important an element in concrete and cement, and is largely quarried near Rome also. Naples, on the other hand, is one of the most important harbours of modern Italy. Beyond it, Torre del Greco and Torre Annunziata at the foot of Vesuvius, are active trading ports for smaller vessels, especially in connexion with macaroni, which is manufactured extensively by all the towns along the bay. Castellammare di Stabia, on the west coast of the gulf, has a large naval shipbuilding yard and an important harbour. Beyond Castellammare the promontory of Sorrento, ending in the Punta della Campanella (from which Capri is 3 m. south-west) forms the south-west extremity of the gulf. The highest point of this mountain ridge, which is connected with the main Apennine chain, is the Monte S. Angelo (4735 ft.). It extends as far east as Salerno, where the coast plain of the Sele begins. As in the low marshy ground at the mouths of the Liri and Volturno, malaria is very prevalent. The south-east extremity of the Gulf of Salerno is formed by another mountain group, culminating in the Monte Cervati (6229 ft.); and on the east side of this is the Gulf of Policastro, where the province of Salerno, and with it Campania, borders, on the province of Potenza. Entry: II
Cotopaxi is frequently described as one of the most beautiful mountain masses of the world, rivalling the celebrated Fujiyama of Japan in its symmetry of outline, but overtopping it by more than 7000 ft. It is more than 15,000 ft. higher than Vesuvius, over 7000 ft. higher than Teneriffe, and nearly 2000 ft. higher than Popocatepetl. Its slope, according to Orton, is 30°, according to Wagner 29°, the north-western side being slightly steeper than the south-eastern. The apical angle is 122° 30'. The snowfall is heavier on the eastern side of the cone which is permanently covered, while the western side is usually left bare, a phenomenon occasioned by the action of the moist trade winds from the Atlantic. Its height according to Whymper is 19,613 ft., and its crater is 2300 ft. in diameter from N. to S., 1650 ft. from E. to W., and has an approximate depth of 1200 ft. It is bordered by a rim of trachytic rock, forming a black coronet above the greyish volcanic dust and sand which covers its sides to a great depth. Whymper found snow and ice under this sand. On the southern slope, at a height of 15,059 ft., is a bare cone of porphyritic andesite called _El Picacho_, "the beak," or _Cabeza del Inca_, "the Inca's head," with dark cliffs rising fully 1000 ft., which according to tradition is the original summit of the volcano blown off at the first-known eruption of 1532. The summit of Cotopaxi is usually enveloped in clouds; and even in the clearest month of the year it is rarely visible for more than eight or ten days. Its eruptions produce enormous quantities of pumice, and deep layers of mud, volcanic sand and pumice surround it on the plateau. Of the air currents about and above Cotopaxi, Wagner says (_Naturw. Reisen im trop. Amerika_, p. 514): "On the Tacunga Plateau, at a height of 8000 Paris feet, the prevailing direction of the wind is meridional, usually from the south in the morning, and frequently from the north in the evening; but over the summit of Cotopaxi, at a height of 18,000 ft., the north-west wind always prevails throughout the day. The gradually-widening volcanic cloud continually takes a south-eastern direction over the rim of the crater; at a height, however, of about 21,000 ft. it suddenly turns to the north-west, and maintains that direction till it reaches a height of at least 28,000 ft. There are thus from the foot of the volcano to the highest level attained by its smoke-cloud three quite distinct regular currents of wind." Entry: COTOPAXI
BASSUS, CAESIUS, a Roman lyric poet, who lived in the reign of Nero. He was the intimate friend of Persius, who dedicated his sixth satire to him, and whose works he edited (Schol. on Persius, vi. 1). He is said to have lost his life in the eruption of Vesuvius (79). He had a great reputation as a poet; Quintilian (_Instit_, x. 1. 96) goes so far as to say that, with the exception of Horace, he was the only lyric poet worth reading. He is also identified with the author of a treatise _De Metris_, of which considerable fragments, probably of an abbreviated edition, are extant (ed. Keil, 1885). The work was probably originally in verse, and afterwards recast or epitomized in prose form to be used as an instruction book. A worthless and scanty account of some of the metres of Horace (in Keil, _Grammatici Latini_, vi. 305), bearing the title _Ars Caesii Bassi de Metris_ is not by him, but chiefly borrowed by its unknown author from the treatise mentioned above. Entry: BASSUS
DAHL, JOHANN CHRISTIAN (1778-1857), Norwegian landscape painter, was born in Bergen. He formed his style without much tuition, remaining at Bergen till he was twenty-four, when he left for the better field of Copenhagen, and ultimately settled in Dresden in 1818. He is usually included in the German school, although he was thus close on forty years of age when he finally took up his abode in Dresden, where he was quickly received into the Academy and became professor. German landscape-painting was not greatly advanced at that time, and Dahl contributed to improve it. He continued to reside in Dresden, though he travelled into Tirol and in Italy, painting many pictures, one of his best being that of the "Outbreak of Vesuvius, 1820." He was fond of extraordinary effects, as seen in his "Winter at Munich," and his "Dresden by Moonlight;" also the "Haven of Copenhagen," and the "Schloss of Friedrichsburg," under the same condition. At Dresden may be seen many of his works, notably a large picture called "Norway," and a "Storm at Sea." He was received into several academic bodies, and had the orders of Wasa and St Olaf sent him by the king of Norway and Sweden. Entry: DAHL
The changes briefly indicated above take place so gradually for the most part that it requires careful observation and comparison of data to establish their reality. It is very different with those changes which we usually ascribe to volcanic agency. Besides the great outlying "hearth" of Iceland, there are four centres of volcanic activity in Europe--all of them, however, situated in the Mediterranean. Vesuvius on the western coast of Italy, Etna in the island of Sicily, and Stromboli in the Lipari group, have been familiarly known from the earliest historic times; but the fourth has only attracted particular attention since the 18th century. It lies in the Archipelago, on the southern edge of the Cyclades, near the little group of islets called Santorin. The region was evidently highly volcanic at an earlier period, for Milo, one of the nearest of the islands, is simply a ruined crater still presenting smoking solfataras and other traces of former activity. The devastations produced by the eruptions of the European volcanoes are usually confined within very narrow limits; and it is only at long intervals that any part of the continent is visited by a really formidable earthquake. The only part of Europe, however, for which there are no recorded earthquakes is central and northern Russia; and the Alps and Carpathians, especially the intra-Carpathian area of depression, Greece, Italy, especially Calabria and the adjoining part of Sicily, the Sierra Nevada and the Pyrenees, the Lisbon district and the rift valley of the upper Rhine (between the Vosges and the Black Forest) are all regions specially liable to earthquake shocks and occasionally to shocks of considerable intensity. One well-marked seismic line extends along the south side of the Alps from Lake Garda by Udine and Görz to Fiume, and another forms a curve convex towards the south-east passing first through Calabria, then through the north-east of Sicily to the south of the Peloritan Mountains.[14] Of all European earthquakes in modern times, the most destructive are that of Lisbon in 1755, and that of Calabria in 1783; the devastation produced by the former has become a classical instance of such disasters in popular literature, and by the latter 100,000 people are said to have lost their lives. Calabria again suffered severely in 1865, 1870, 1894, 1905 and 1908. Entry: 1
JANUARIUS, ST, or SAN GENNARO, the patron saint of Naples. According to the legend, he was bishop of Benevento, and flourished towards the close of the 3rd century. On the outbreak of the persecution by Diocletian and Maximian, he was taken to Nola and brought before Timotheus, governor of Campania, on account of his profession of the Christian religion. After various assaults upon his constancy, he was sentenced to be cast into the fiery furnace, through which he passed wholly unharmed. On the following day, along with a number of fellow martyrs, he was exposed to the fury of wild beasts, which, however, laid themselves down in tame submission at his feet. Timotheus, again pronouncing sentence of death, was struck with blindness, but immediately healed by the powerful intercession of the saint, a miracle which converted nearly five thousand men on the spot. The ungrateful judge, only roused to further fury by these occurrences, caused the execution of Januarius by the sword to be forthwith carried out. The body was ultimately removed by the inhabitants of Naples to that city, where the relic became very famous for its miracles, especially in counteracting the more dangerous eruptions of Vesuvius. Whatever the difficulties raised by his _Acta_, the cult of St Januarius, bishop and martyr, is attested historically at Naples as early as the 5th century (_Biblioth. hagiog. latina_, No. 6558). Two phials preserved in the cathedral are believed to contain the blood of the martyr. The relic is shown twice a year--in May and September. On these occasions the substance contained in the phial liquefies, and the Neapolitans see in this phenomenon a supernatural manifestation. The "miracle of St Januarius" did not occur before the middle of the 15th century. Entry: JANUARIUS
The distribution of basalts is world-wide; and in some places [v.03 p.0458] they occur in immense masses, and cover great areas. In Washington, Oregon, and Idaho many thousands of square miles are occupied by basaltic-lava flows. In the Sandwich Islands and Iceland they are the prevalent lavas; and the well-known columnar jointed basalts of Skye, Staffa, and Antrim (Giant's Causeway) form a southward extension of the Icelandic volcanic province, with which they are connected by the similar rocks of the Faeroe Islands. In the Deccan in India great basaltic lava fields are known; and Etna and Vesuvius emit basaltic rocks. In older geological periods they were not less common; for example, in the Carboniferous in Scotland. Entry: BASALT
Nothing is yet known as to the determining cause of any particular volcanic eruption. Some vents, like that of Stromboli, in the Mediterranean, are continually active, and have been so ever since man has observed them. Others again have been only intermittently in eruption, with intervals of centuries between their periods of activity. We are equally in the dark as to what has determined the sites on which volcanic action has manifested itself. There is reason, indeed, to believe that extensive fractures of the terrestrial crust have often provided passages up which the vapours, imprisoned in the internal magma, have been able to make their way, accompanied by other products. Where chains of volcanoes rise along definite lines, like those of Sumatra, Java, and many other tracts both in the Old and the New World, there appears to be little doubt that their linear distribution should be attributed to this cause. But where a volcano has appeared by itself, in a region previously exempt from volcanic action, the existence of a contributing fissure cannot be so confidently presumed. The study of certain ancient volcanoes, the roots of which have been exposed by long denudation, has shown an absence of any visible trace of their having availed themselves of fractures in the crust. The inference has been drawn that volcanic energy is capable of itself drilling an orifice through the crust, probably at some weaker part, and ejecting its products at the surface. The source of this energy is to be sought in the enormous expansive force of the vapours and gases dissolved in the magma. They are kept in solution by the enormous pressure within the earth; but as the lava approaches the surface and this pressure is relieved these dissolved vapours and gases rush out with explosive violence, blowing the upper part of the lava column into dust, and allowing portions of the liquid mass below to rise and escape, either from the crater or from some fissure which the vigour of explosion has opened on the side of the cone. So gigantic is the energy of these pent-up vapours, that, after a long period of volcanic quiescence, they sometimes burst forth with such violence as to blow off the whole of the upper part or even one side of a large cone. The history of Vesuvius, and the great eruptions of Krakatoa in 1883 and of Bandaizan in 1888 furnish memorable examples of great volcanic convulsions. It has been observed that such stupendous discharges of aeriform and fragmentary matter may be attended with the emission of little or no lava. On the other hand, some of the largest outflows of lava have been accompanied by comparatively little fragmentary material. Thus, the great lava-floods of Iceland in 1783 spread for 40 m. away from their parent fissure, which was marked only by a line of little cones of slag. Entry: A
HUMITE, a group of minerals consisting of basic magnesium fluo-silicates, with the following formulae:--Chondrodite, Mg3[Mg(F, OH)]2[SiO4]2; Humite, Mg5[Mg(F, OH)]2[SiO4]3; Clinohumite, Mg7[Mg(F, OH)]2[SiO4]4. Humite crystallizes in the orthorhombic and the two others in the monoclinic system, but between them there is a close crystallographic relation: the lengths of the vertical axes are in the ratio 5:7:9, and this is also the ratio of the number of magnesium atoms present in each of the three minerals. These minerals are strikingly similar in appearance, and can only be distinguished by the goniometric measurement of the complex crystals. They are honey-yellow to brown or red in colour, and have a vitreous to resinous lustre; the hardness is 6-6½, and the specific gravity 3.1-3.2. Further, they often occur associated together, and it is only comparatively recently that the three species have been properly discriminated. The name humite, after Sir Abraham Hume, Bart. (1749-1839), whose collection of diamond crystals is preserved at Cambridge in the University museum, was given by the comte de Bournon in 1813 to the small and brilliant honey-yellow crystals found in the blocks of crystalline limestone ejected from Monte Somma, Vesuvius; all three species have since been recognized at this locality. Chondrodite (from [Greek: chondros], "a grain") was a name early (1817) in use for granular forms of these minerals found embedded in crystalline limestones in Sweden, Finland and at several place in New York and New Jersey. Large hyacinth-red crystals of all three species are associated with magnetite in the Tilly Foster iron-mine at Brewster, New York; and at Kafveltorp in Örebro, Sweden, similar crystals (of chondrodite) occur embedded in galena and chalcopyrite. Entry: HUMITE
The brief notices of the classical writers inform us that Herculaneum[1] was a small city of Campania between Neapolis and Pompeii, that it was situated between two streams at the foot of Vesuvius on a hill overlooking the sea, and that its harbour was at all seasons safe. With regard to its earlier history nothing is known. The account given by Dionysius repeats a tradition which was most natural for a city bearing the name of Hercules. Strabo follows up the topographical data with a few brief historical statements--[Greek: Oskoi eichon kai tautên kai tên ephexês Pompêian ... eita Turrhênoi kai Pelasgoi, meta tauta Saunitai]. But leaving the questions suggested by these names (see ETRURIA, &c.),[2] as well as those which relate to the origin of Pompeii (q.v.), it is sufficient here to say that the first historical record about Herculaneum has been handed down by Livy (viii. 25), where he relates how the city fell under the power of Rome during the Samnite wars. It remained faithful to Rome for a long time, but it joined the Italian allies in the Social War. Having submitted anew in June of the year 665 (88 B.C.), it appears to have been less severely treated than Pompeii, and to have escaped the imposition of a colony of Sulla's veterans, although Zumpt has suspected the contrary (_Comm. epigr._ i. 259). It afterwards became a municipium, and enjoyed great prosperity towards the close of the republic and in the earlier times of the empire, since many noble families of Rome selected this pleasant spot for the construction of splendid villas, one of which indeed belonged to the imperial house (Seneca, _De ira_, iii.), and another to the family of Calpurnius Piso. By means of the Via Campana it had easy communication north-westward with Neapolis, Puteoli and Capua, and thence by the Via Appia with Rome; and southwards with Pompeii and Nuceria, and thence with Lucania and the Bruttii. In the year A.D. 63 it suffered terribly from the earthquake which, according to Seneca, "Campaniam nunquam securam huius mali, indemnem tamen, et toties defunctam metu magna strage vastavit. Nam et Herculanensis oppidi pars ruit dubieque stant etiam quae relicta sunt" (_Nat. quaest._ vi. 1). Hardly had Herculaneum completed the restoration of some of its principal buildings (cf. Mommsen, I.N. n. 2384; _Catalogo del Museo Nazionale di Napoli_, n. 1151) when it fell beneath the great eruption of the year 79, described by Pliny the younger (_Ep._ vi. 16, 20), in which Pompeii also was destroyed, with other flourishing cities of Campania. According to the commonest account, on the 23rd of August of that year Pliny the elder, who had command of the Roman fleet at Misenum, set out to render assistance to a young lady of noble family named Rectina and others dwelling on that coast, but, as there was no escape by sea, the little harbour having been on a sudden filled up so as to be inaccessible, he was obliged to abandon to their fate those people of Herculaneum who had managed to flee from their houses, overwhelmed in a moment by the material poured forth by Vesuvius. But the text of Pliny the younger, where this account is given, has been subjected to various interpretations; and from the comparison of other classical testimonies and the study of the excavations it has been concluded that it is impossible to determine the date of the catastrophe, though there are satisfactory arguments to justify the statement that the event took place in the autumn. The opinion that immediately after the first outbreak of Vesuvius a torrent of lava was ejected over Herculaneum was refuted by the scholars of the 18th century, and their refutation is confirmed by Beulé (_Le Drame du Vésuve_, p. 240 seq.). And the last recensions of the passage quoted from Pliny, aided by an inscription,[3] prove that Rectina cannot have been the name of the harbour described by Beulé (ib. pp. 122, 247), but the name of a lady who had implored succour, the wife of Caesius Bassus, or rather Tascius (cf. Pliny, ed. Keil, Leipzig, 1870; Aulus Persius, ed. Jahn, _Sat._ vi.). The shore, moreover, according to the accurate studies of the engineer Michele Ruggiero, director of the excavations, was not altered by the causes adduced by Beulé (p. 125), but by a simpler event. "It is certain," he says (_Pompei e la regione sotterrata dal Vesuvio l'anno 79_, Naples, 1879, p. 21 seq.), "that the districts between the south and west, and those between the south and east, were overwhelmed in two quite different ways. From Torre Annunziata (which is believed to be the site of the ancient Oplontii) to San Giovanni a Teduccio, for a distance of about 9 m., there flowed a muddy eruption which in Herculaneum and the neighbouring places, where it was most abundant, raised the level of the country more than 65 ft. The matter transported consisted of soil of various kinds--sand, ashes, fragments of lava, pozzolana and whitish pumice, enclosing grains of uncalcined lime, similar in every respect to those of Pompeii. In the part of Herculaneum already excavated the corridors in the upper portions of the theatre are compactly filled, up to the head of the arches, with pozzolana and pumice transformed into tufa (which proves that the formation of this stone may take place in a comparatively short time). Tufa is also found in the lowest part of the city towards the sea in front of the few houses that have been discovered; and in the very high banks that surround them, as also in the lowest part of the theatre, there are plainly to be seen earth, sand, ashes, fragments of lava and pumice, with little distinction of strata, almost always confused and mingled together, and varying from spot to spot in degree of compactness. It is clear that this immense congeries of earth and stones could not flow in a dry state over those 5 m. of country (in the beginning very steep, and at intervals almost level), where certainly it would have been arrested and all accumulated in a mound; but it must have been borne along by a great quantity of water, the effects of which may be distinctly recognized, not only in the filling and choking up even of the most narrow, intricate and remote parts of the buildings, but also in the formation of the tufa, in which water has so great a share; for it cannot be supposed that enough of it has filtered through so great a depth of earth. The torrent ran in a few hours to the sea, and formed that shallow or lagoon called by Pliny _Subitum Vadum_, which prevented the ships approaching the shores." Hence it is that, while many made their escape from Pompeii (which was overwhelmed by the fall of the small stones and afterwards by the rain of ashes), comparatively few can have managed to escape from Herculaneum, and these, according to the interpretation given to the inscription preserved in the National Museum (Mommsen, _I.N._ n. 2455), found shelter in the neighbouring city of Neapolis, where they inhabited a quarter called that of the buried city (Suetonius, _Titus_, 8; _C.I.L._ x. No. 1492, in Naples: "Regio primaria splendidissima Herculanensium"). The name of Herculaneum, which for some time remained attached to the site of the disaster, is mentioned in the later itineraries; but in the course of the middle ages all recollection of it perished. Entry: HERCULANEUM