Chapter I: THE LOWLANDS OF BRITAIN. If a line be drawn across England from (8)

Seen from the crest of the Vatican ridge, the Roman Campagna stretches as a plain from the base of the steep front of the Apennines to the coast of the Mediterranean--a distance of some thirty English miles. To the north it is bounded by the ridge of Soracte and the nearer heights of Bracciano and Tolfa. To the south it runs up to the base of the Alban Hills and sweeps between them and the sea onwards till it merges into the flat and pestilential Maremma. Even from such a commanding point of view, however, this apparent plain can be seen to be far from having an even surface. Not only does it slope upward and inland from the coast, until, where it abuts against the foot of the hills, it has reached heights of 600 or 800 feet, but when looked at more closely it presents a somewhat diversified topography. Though the heights and hollows never vary much from the general average level, they include not only smooth, grassy ridges but also low cliffs that run along the declivities, rising sometimes into craggy scarps; likewise narrow gullies and ravines with steep walls, as well as wide, open, smooth-sided valleys. The surface is for the most part clothed with pasture; yet the brown and yellow rock that forms most of the plain protrudes in many places, not only where it has been laid bare by natural causes, but where it has been artificially cut away or scooped into subterranean recesses.

Such a varied form of ground was eminently favourable for human settlement. The earliest races could find or make rock-shelters almost anywhere. The fertility of the soil afforded to their successors good pasturage and fields for tillage, while the hillocks, girt round with cliffs, and the flat-topped ridges, shelving precipitously to lower ground, offered excellent sites for fortification and defence. Owing to the porous nature of the ground, much of the rain sinks at once beneath the surface, instead of flowing off in brooks. Hence many of the valleys are usually dry, unless in wet seasons. But water can be obtained all over the district by sinking wells, and that this source of supply has been in use from a remote period and to an almost incredible extent, has been strikingly shown by the recent excavations beneath the pavements of the Roman Forum. It would be difficult to find anywhere a form of ground which shows better the influence of geological structure upon the early fortunes of a people.

With some portion of what has been written by Italian and other observers on this district, I have made myself acquainted, and having had the advantage of tracing on the ground the records of the successive stages through which the Campagna has come to be what it is, I propose in the following pages to give an outline of this prehistoric chronicle. I should like to attempt to present to the reader such a picture of the whole sequence of events as has vividly impressed itself on my own mind, avoiding, as far as may be practicable, technicalities and details. Three distinct successive phases can be recognised in this sequence. First came a time when the waves of the Mediterranean broke against the base of the steep front of the Apennines, and when all the low grounds around Rome, and for leagues to the north and south, lay sunk many fathoms deep. Next followed the chief period in the building up of the Campagna. A host of volcanoes rose along the sea-floor on the west side of Central Italy, when ashes, dust and stones were thrown out in such quantity and for so prolonged a time as to strew over the sea-bottom a mass of material several hundred feet thick. Partly from this accumulation and partly by an upheaval of the whole region of Italy, the sea-bottom with its volcanic cones was raised up as a strip of low land bordering the high grounds of the interior, and a few huge volcanoes were subsequently piled up to a height of several thousand feet. Lastly succeeded the epoch in which the volcanic platform, no longer increased by fresh eruptions, was carved by subaërial agencies into the topography which it presents to-day. Each of these three phases has had its history legibly graven in the rocky framework of the Campagna, and some of its memorials may be recognised even within the walls of Rome.

I. The records of the first period lie beneath the Seven Hills on the left bank of the Tiber, but rise high above the plain on the right bank, where they form the chain of heights that culminates in Monte Mario, 455 feet above the level of the Mediterranean. These records, forming the series known to geologists by the name of Pliocene, consist of a lower bluish-grey clay and an upper group of yellow sands and gravels, the whole being probably a good deal more than 450 feet thick. The clay (Plaisancian) has been found to extend, with a remarkable persistence of aspect and contents, from the north to the south of Italy. It has yielded several hundred species of mollusks and other organisms, which show it to be a thoroughly marine silt, deposited on the bottom of a sea of some little depth.

At the time of the deposition of this clay the mountainous backbone of the country had already undergone the greater part of that prolonged series of terrestrial disturbances whereby solid sheets of limestone were folded, crushed, ruptured and driven together into a series of parallel ridges, having a general trend from northwest to southeast, and forming the nucleus of what is now the chain of the Apennines. At the epoch when our story begins, however, this chain was still incomplete, and probably a good deal lower, as well as narrower, than subsequent upheaval has made it. Instead of forming, as it now does, the lofty axis of a broad peninsula, it then consisted of a series of parallel islands and islets, separated from each other by long and often narrow sounds or channels. In general appearance it must have resembled parts of the coast of Dalmatia on the opposite side of the Adriatic. Many of the more prominent mountains of the region stood then entirely surrounded by the sea. The Sabine Hills, for example, rose as an island, while Soracte formed another island farther west. A long strait ran northwards by Rocca Sinibalda and Rieti to Terni; another of narrower width stretched towards Perugia and formed then the estuary of the Tiber. All the Roman Campagna, together with the low grounds on both sides of the Apennines, was at that time submerged under the sea. The great band of volcanic heights and cones that extends from Aquapendente to the Bay of Naples had not yet come into existence, but over their site the waters of the Mediterranean lay many fathoms deep.

The climate of Europe had for ages been of so genial a character that sub-tropical types of life had long flourished both in the sea and on the land of this quarter of the globe. But in the period of geological history with which we are now concerned, a remarkable diminution of temperature was in progress all over the Northern hemisphere. As the warmth grew less, the distribution of plants and animals came to be seriously affected. Many southern forms were extirpated from districts which they had long inhabited, while in their place came migrations of northern species. This modification made itself felt both on terrestrial and marine life. Thus in the Atlantic Ocean a number of northern shells, which had pushed their way southward even as far as the coasts of the Spanish peninsula, were able to enter the Mediterranean when a connection was opened between that inland sea and the main ocean outside. It is interesting to note that among the shells introduced into the Mediterranean basin at this time were _Astarte borealis_, _Buccinum groenlandicum_, _Cyprina islandica_, _Panopaea norvegica_ and others whose appellations sufficiently indicate the latitudes where they now find their chief home. On the land, too, such quadrupeds as the reindeer and the now extinct mammoth wandered from the plains of Lapland and Russia to the shores of Italy. Eventually when the refrigeration gave way to the return of more genial conditions, the northern invaders died out. They have no living descendants now in the south of Europe.

The grey clay which forms the lower division of the Roman Pliocene series is best seen on the right side of the Tiber where it forms the lower half of the ridge of the Vatican and Monte Mario, and where for more than five-and-twenty centuries it has supplied material for making the bricks of which ancient and modern Rome has been so largely constructed. The same clay has been found at lower levels on the opposite side of the river. On the flanks of the Pincian Hill, at the Piazza di Spagna, it was exposed about twelve years ago in some excavations connected with the adjustment of the aqueduct of the Aqua Vergine. Only a few feet below the crowded pavements of that busy thoroughfare lies the old sea-bottom with its abundant relics of marine life. In borings for water which have been made around Rome the same deposit has been ascertained to extend below the later volcanic formations of the Campagna. Thus at the Appia Antica fort, near the tomb of Cecilia Metella, the clay was entered at a depth of about 300 feet from the surface or eighty feet below the level of the sea. As the upper limit of the clay at Monte Mario lies about 200 feet above sea level and the distance from that outcrop to the fort in question is about six miles, it might be inferred that there is here evidence of a southeasterly dip of the deposit amounting to forty-six feet in a mile. But before any inference of this kind can be accepted, some considerations should be taken into account, of the highest interest and importance in relation to the early history both of the Campagna and of the Apennine chain.

Before dealing with these questions, however, let us complete the examination of the marine deposits of Monte Mario. In the valuable section disclosed on the slopes of that hill, the grey clay is seen to become sandy towards the top and to include seams of sand which rapidly increase in thickness, until, with their included layers of gravel, they form nearly the whole of the upper part of the ridge. These yellow sands, generally distinguished by the name of 'Astian,' have been traced, like the clay below them, along nearly the whole length of the Italian peninsula. The striking contrast which, in the nature of their material, they present to the clay, plainly points to a great alteration of the geography of the coasts at the time when they were deposited. The sea must have become rapidly shallower. Not improbably one of the uplifts now took place, whereby the land has been raised at intervals to its present height. The steepness of the descent of the mountains into the sea might not lead at once to much gain of land along the western coast; but instead of the grey mud that had previously accumulated in the deeper water, coarser sediment, brought down by numerous torrents from the hills, now spread out over the sea-bottom. Such a transition from the finest silt to gravel and sand could not fail to affect the distribution of the animals living along the coast-line. Accordingly, on comparing the fossils in the sands with those of the clay, we see that while some of the shells, especially the larger and more massive kinds, continued to flourish in abundance; others, which found their most congenial haunts in tranquil waters, were driven further out to sea.

As the Pliocene deposits so well displayed at Rome are known to preserve throughout Italy the same twofold character, with the same types of sediment and of organic remains, the observer who tries to follow their development in the Campagna is soon puzzled by the way in which they there suddenly disappear and allow their place to be taken by later deposits of volcanic origin, which are known by the general designation of Tuff. The most astonishing example of this local peculiarity is to be found at the Monte Verde, south of the Janiculan ridge. The clays and sands which rise in horizontal layers almost to the top of Monte Mario are there entirely cut out, and the tuff, which lies as a mere thin capping on the crest of that hill, suddenly descends across the truncated edges of the Pliocene strata to the alluvial plain of the Tiber. On the opposite side of the river, the upper sands have been almost entirely removed and the tuff is found lying almost immediately on the lower clay. It is clear that there must have been an extensive, though no doubt local, erosion of these marine strata, before the main body of the tuff was laid down. By what agency this erosion was effected is not quite clear. Not improbably a gap occurs here in the record, representing an interval of considerable duration of which no chronicle has survived.

Passing over this hiatus, we still encounter marine deposits, but these are of volcanic origin, and leave us meanwhile to speculate in the dark as to whether the denudation was the work of the sea or of terrestrial waters. Owing to the thick covering of tuff which has overspread the Campagna and concealed all that lies below, it has become difficult to obtain adequate data for the discussion of this question, which is of considerable interest in the history of the Campagna. The most reliable evidence would be supplied by a series of borings across the district in different directions. Such a series may perhaps hereafter be undertaken for the purpose of obtaining water for the farms and homesteads, which sanguine patriots foresee taking in the future the place of the present solitude, and in that event, the geologists of Rome will no doubt be on the watch for all the information that can be gathered from this source as to the nature of the rocks underneath, and their relations to each other.

In the meantime, much might be done in this attractive department of local geology by a far more detailed study than has yet been attempted of the surroundings of the Campagna. In particular the recognisable stratigraphical horizons among the Pliocene strata should be definitely traced and mapped in detail, where they emerge from under the volcanic tuff. It would then be possible to measure the amount of erosion in various places, and to determine how far the spread of the volcanic sheet across older formations is due to actual unconformability and how far to simple overlap. At the same time, the precise height could be ascertained of the upper limit of the Pliocene deposits, and data would probably be obtained for determining not only the minimum amount of the uplift of the land since the Pliocene period, but also how far and in what directions there may have been any warping of the peninsula in the course of the elevation. We know from the observations of De Angelis that the Plaisancian clays, which at Monte Mario do not rise more than 200 feet above the surface of the Mediterranean, reach a height of as much as 1,050 metres (3,445 feet) in the upper part of the valley of the Arno, near Subiaco, only about thirty miles east from Rome, or an upheaval of as much as 108 feet in a mile. It remains still to discover how far this amount may fall short of the total extent of the post-Pliocene uplift of the Apennine chain.

Not improbably the deep and extensive erosion of the Pliocene formations before the deposition of the volcanic tuffs, and their elevation above sea-level were related phenomena, connected with the outbreak of the remarkable volcanic episode in the geological history of Central Italy, which has so profoundly modified the scenery of the country. In the yellow sands and gravels of Monte Mario no trace of volcanic detritus has been detected. Their sediments, containing pebbles of Rhaetic, Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks can hardly have come from any other source than the Apennine chain. But before their deposition had quite come to an end the Volcanic period was ushered in which forms the second stage of the history of the region.

II. We have now to deal with the records of one of the most interesting phases in the evolution of the framework of Italy--the period that witnessed the birth, development and extinction of a series of volcanoes which, starting on the sea-bottom in front of the western coast, gradually built up a tract of plains in some places thirty to forty miles broad and altogether perhaps as much as 200 miles long, finally crowned with majestic cones several thousand feet high. The chronicles of this episode being tolerably complete in the Roman Campagna, they enable us to follow the course of events with great clearness from the beginning to the end.

Nowhere in the district around Rome have the earliest indications of the oncoming of this volcanic period, the first mutterings, as it were, of the subterranean convulsions, been more instructively preserved than in the line of quarries that have been opened along the edge of the alluvial plain of the Tiber at the Torretta di Quinto, near the Ponte Molle, about two miles north from the city. The section of strata there exposed, which has long been known and often described, is at present undergoing rapid changes from the extensive excavations required to procure materials for the embankment of the river in its course through Rome. Nowhere, too, is the geologist more seductively wooed from the pursuit of his researches by the fascination of crowded historic associations. From the slopes above the quarries, he sees the Tiber catching the shadows of the Pons Milvius, where Maxentius met his doom. Below him rise the roofs of the _Osterie_, which on feast days repeat the noise and merriment that made the place notorious in the days of the Empire. Opposite him, a green hill marks the long-deserted site of Antemnæ, beneath which the Tiber winds as a silver band through its meadows far up past other old towns that have long since mouldered into dust. Looking across the green and purple expanse of the Campagna, dotted with its ruined towers, he sees the whole sweep of the blue rampart of the Sabine Hills--almost the only feature of the landscape that has remained the same. If from these memories of the past he turns to the long line of quarries, he is perchance rudely awakened to the strenuous present by gangs of workmen, digging, blasting, wheeling; by the rattle of laden wagons, and by an occasional explosion of gunpowder or dynamite. Passing through this busy scene, he soon perceives that the ancient bank against which the Tiber chafed when it was spreading out its high alluvial plain, has been quarried backward, and as the ground slopes upward from the plain, the cliff thus artificially cut open must be continually changing its face and becoming higher. At present there has been laid open an excellent section of strata forming part of the upper or sandy group of Monte Mario. These succeed each other in horizontal bands so diverse in form and colour as to give the cliff a markedly banded aspect.

At the southern end of this section some layers of coarse gravel may be seen cemented into a solid calcareous conglomerate full of large and well-preserved marine shells. A little further over comes a band of travertine--a compact variety of limestone which is one of the characteristic and economically important stones of the Campagna, for where of good quality, it makes an admirable firm cream-coloured building-stone, which has been largely used from the early times of Roman history. To its durability the preservation of so many noble monuments of Republican and Imperial architecture is due. I may remark in passing that this material can now be seen in actual course of deposition from solution in the neighbourhood of Rome. The cold waters of the Anio have formed thick masses of it at the Tivoli Falls, and the warm springs of Bagni deposit it on the plain below. At the latter place its accumulation must have been going on for a vast period of time, seeing that it now covers a tract of the low ground to the north of the Anio, measuring about six miles from east to west and four miles from north to south. Here the quarries of ancient Rome were opened, and the modern city still draws its supplies from the same area. A smaller tract of similar stone has been worked for building material at Cisterna di Roma, about twenty-eight miles to the southeast of the city. A thin band of travertine, possibly a continuation of that at the Torretta di Quinto, forms a conspicuous cliff along the east side of the Via Flaminia, between Ponte Molle and the Porto del Popolo, and other detached masses of it make their appearance at various places further south.

These various outcrops of travertine, as I shall have occasion to show, have had an important influence in the excavation of the valley of the Tiber and the isolation of the hills of Rome. The material was probably deposited chiefly by hot springs containing abundant carbonate of lime in solution, and may be regarded as an accompaniment or sequel of volcanic activity. In most cases, thermal mineral springs depositing travertine make their appearance in the later phases of a volcanic period, and often continue long after every other manifestation of subterranean heat has died out. But at the Torretta di Quinto the sheet of travertine is found among the records of the beginning of the volcanic history. Another exceptional feature in this sheet is the proof that it was laid down on the floor of the sea, for it encloses the remains of some of the shells that lived at the time in that sea.

More direct and obvious proof of the breaking-out of volcanic eruptions is to be found in the strata that lie above the travertine. In some of these may be detected truly volcanic minerals such as felspar, augite and black mica, derived from the explosion of lava within eruptive vents and from the falling of the volcanic dust upon the silt and shells of the sea-bottom. Higher up more pronounced evidence of successive eruptions is furnished by abundant lapilli and scoriæ of black slaggy lava, and by bands of true tuff, composed almost or entirely of volcanic detritus.

This section at the Torretta di Quinto is of great interest as indicating that the volcanoes of the Campagna began their career under the sea. Similar evidence obtained at other places makes it probable that the whole chain of volcanoes in central and southern Italy, from those of Bolsena on the north to those of Naples and Sicily on the south, started their eruptions on the sea-floor. When the activity of this chain was at its height, a band of eruptive vents flanked the western coast from the neighbourhood of Aquapendente and Ovieto to perhaps as far as the Bay of Salerno. At first the cones formed round these vents were probably submerged, and were no doubt more or less washed down and levelled by the agitation of the sea, but as they were renewed by successive discharges, the larger examples among them may have risen above water and scattered their dust and stones into the air. These volcanic islets would then front the mainland of Italy, much as the Aeolian islands now flank the northern coast of Sicily. Etna, Lipari, Volcano, Stromboli and the other islets may be regarded as the last lineal descendants of the insular volcanoes to whose operations the scenery of Central and Southern Italy is so largely indebted.

The solid substances ejected by these volcanoes in the earlier stages of their history consisted mainly of fragmentary material--dust, sand, stones, scoriæ, and the other discrete forms in which molten lava is blown out of volcanic vents by the explosion of its absorbed vapours and gases. Sometimes pieces of limestone or other rock, which were torn away from the older formations underneath, are found dispersed through the volcanic detritus. This fragmentary material, now more or less compacted into the form of Tuff, extends throughout the length and breadth of the volcanic tract and must thus cover some thousands of square miles. In the Campagna, which lies upon it and derives thence its distinctive features, it reaches a thickness of 300 feet or more, while inland it overlaps the Pliocene deposits in detached outliers which run far up the Apennine valleys, reaching heights of 1,200 feet and upward. Compared with the Pliocene strata that lie below it, the tuff presents some characteristic differences which at once arrest attention. It lacks the rapid alternation and variety of parallel layers so marked in the Astian sands. Yet it can generally be seen to possess a stratified arrangement. Here and there, indeed, this structure gives place to a tumultuous accumulation of coarse detritus, huddled together as it fell, large and small lumps of lava being confusedly mingled in the general matrix and forming the rock known to geologists as Agglomerate. Such coarser intercalations probably indicate proximity to centres of eruption, and in some cases may even mark the position of the vents themselves. Alternations in the character of the successive beds of tuff may be regarded as evidence of variations in the energy and distribution of the active orifices. It may be added that the tuff supplied the Romans with various admirable building materials. In the days of the Kings and of the Republic, its more compact kinds were quarried in large quadrangular blocks for the construction of massive walls, while in later times some of its more incoherent varieties were discovered to be capable of forming the most durable concrete, which in the hands of Roman architects was employed with a boldness and skill that have never since been equalled.

That the materials of the tuff were assorted under water is suggested by their stratified structure. This inference is strengthened by the intercalation among them of sheets of sand, gravel, clay and marl. The layers of gravel are especially important, for their component pebbles of limestone and other non-volcanic stones are unmistakably fragments of Mesozoic rocks, which have been rolled along by running water from their original resting places among the Apennines so as to acquire smoothed and rounded forms. But though the tuff was accumulated under water, it presents a strong contrast to the clays and sands below it by its generally unfossiliferous character. Leaves, branches and stems of ilex, oak and other land-vegetation have been obtained from it at various places, sometimes as mere hollow moulds or in carbonised forms, but occasionally with the internal structure still preserved. Less frequently it has yielded the bones, antlers or tusks of terrestrial quadrupeds. But both the plants and animals have obviously been drifted from the land, and did not live where their remains have been found. It is worthy of remark that though so many observers have been at work in successive generations among the rocks of the Campagna, no undoubted example of marine mollusk has been recorded from the tuff in the interior of the Campagna. The crowds of shells in the Pliocene strata underneath are there absent. That the conditions required for the existence of an abundant marine fauna continued over this site until the beginning of the volcanic period is manifest from the crowded pteropods, lamellibranchs and gasteropods of the clays and sands. But as the eruptions increased in area and in intensity these conditions were eventually destroyed. The descent of continued showers of hot dust, ashes and stones over the sea-bottom, the rise of mephitic gases from below, as well as of hot springs that deposited sheets of travertine, must have made that sea-floor no congenial home for either plant or animal.

It has often been assumed that the tuff of the Roman Campagna was derived from the eruptions of the Alban volcano on the one side, and of the Bracciano volcano on the other. A careful study of the tuff, however, and a comparison of it with that of more ancient volcanic districts, the structure of which has been more fully laid open by prolonged denudation, leads, in my opinion, to a conviction that this assumption is founded on inaccurate observation. The rapidly varying and lenticular character of the materials when followed along the cliffs where they are exposed, and their occasional agglomeratic character which increases and diminishes in various directions, with no reference to the two great volcanic centres on each border of the district, point not to showers of detritus from these centres, or from any other vents at a distance, but to local eruptions from many and generally small vents, discharging here fine, there coarse materials, at different times and independent of each other. I have not myself been fortunate enough to detect a 'neck,' which would mark the site of one of these vents, nor so far as I am aware, has any example of this structure been recorded from the general body of the Campagna tuff. But this failure of proof, I am disposed to believe, is to be accounted for rather from the special kind of evidence required not having hitherto been recognised, or searched for with sufficient experience, than because it does not exist.

One of the tasks which I think might hopefully be undertaken in regard to the geological history of this district is that of seeking for proofs of the distribution of some of the vents whence the tuff was ejected. Among the numerous crags along the hillsides, and in the abundant stream-courses or _fossi_, where the naked rock has been laid bare all over the Campagna, sections might be met with that would help to solve this problem. The numerous unquestionable 'craters' of the Alban and Ciminian Hills belong to a much later stage of the volcanic period than that in which the main mass of tuff was formed. We must remember also, in considering this question, that the tuff, with its distinctive and persistent characters, stretches far beyond the limits within which the materials fell that were discharged from the Alban or Bracciano volcanoes, even when these were at the height of their vigour. It can be followed in numerous detached tracts of valley-floor through the hills eastwards to Sora, and southwards to near Gaeta. There is reason to believe, indeed, that the type of small submarine vents extended all through the volcanic tract from its northern to its southern limit.

A little reflection will show that the sites of these vents may be expected to be difficult of detection. In the first place, though numerous, their small size may easily make them escape notice, even where they may have been wholly or partially laid bare by denudation. Probably a close parallel to their original forms and to the way in which they were in some places crowded together is to be found in the Phlegræan Fields near Naples--a district which well deserves the careful scrutiny of any one who desires to follow the volcanic history of the Roman Campagna. Its cones are terrestrial, indeed, not submarine. Being much younger, they have been far better preserved than those of the submarine stage of the period. One of them, Monte Nuovo, though now as cold and silent as the oldest of them, was thrown up so recently as A.D. 1538. Another, that of the Solfatara, is still a steaming vent, while Vesuvius from time to time vigorously asserts its claim to rank in the list of active volcanoes. These Neapolitan cones probably convey a fair idea of the general distribution and aspect of those of the Campagna, especially in the later time when the volcanic platform had eventually been raised above the level of the Mediterranean. We see, as in the case of the youngest and smallest of the three craters which have risen through each other to the north of Astroni, that some of the Neapolitan vents were only a few yards in diameter. And we learn also that at least one, and probably others of them, were the product of single eruptions, for Monte Nuovo, which is nearly 500 feet in height, was thrown up in the course of two days. Doubtless, these small and rapidly built monticules had many predecessors of like type on the Roman Campagna.

In the second place, the cones connected with the tuff of the district around Rome, being composed of loose fragmentary materials, would be easily washed down. No one can ramble over that area without being struck with the singular scarcity of solid lava among the endless exposures of tuff. It is true that around the great craters of the Alban and Ciminian Hills a good deal of lava can be seen to have been emitted. But these masses, like the volcanoes that gave vent to them, belong to that later stage of the volcanic history to which I have referred. Only to a trifling extent does the tuff of the Campagna appear to include contemporaneous sheets of lava. If, then, molten rock has hardly ever poured out at the surface, it may rarely have risen and consolidated in the upper parts of the throats of the volcanoes, so as to form there a hard core which would remain as a projecting knob when the surrounding loose ashes were levelled down by denudation.

In the third place, there can now be no doubt that the greater part of the sheet of tuff in the Roman Campagna was accumulated under the sea. This subject was for many years one on which various contradictory opinions were held. Some writers, from the general stratified structure, correctly maintained the marine origin of the tuff. Again, on the evidence of enclosed land-plants and animals, some observers have regarded it as a freshwater deposit, while others have looked upon it as a terrestrial formation. It is true, as I shall point out a little further on, that here and there, especially in its upper parts, the tuff includes intercalated bands of strata containing land and freshwater shells as well as bones of terrestrial mammals, and indicating that the floor of the sea had been converted into low land with brackish lagoons and lakes of fresh water. But as regards the main mass of the tuff of the Campagna, the question of its marine origin may now be considered as definitely settled by the researches of Professor Portis, of the University of Rome. In specimens of different varieties of the rock from all parts of the district, and previously supposed to be entirely unfossiliferous, this careful observer has found that foraminifera are often abundant and well preserved. These organisms are unequivocally marine, swimming freely in the upper waters and sinking when dead to mingle with the silt or to form of themselves an ooze on the bottom. We can thus understand how they might be borne along above a seafloor on which molluscan life was hardly possible.

If, then, cones of loose ashes and scoriæ were thrown up on the bottom of the sea, they would obviously be apt to be rapidly lowered by the agitation of currents and ground swell, while those which rose above the surface of the water, as Lipari, Volcano and Stromboli do now, would be subject also to continual erosion by rain and to unceasing attack along their shores by wind-waves. They would thus tend to be ultimately planed down, their materials being strewn over the surrounding sea-bottom, so as to add to the general accumulating sheet of tuff. The rapidity with which this kind of demolition may be completed was impressively exemplified in this very area of the Mediterranean by the history of Graham Island, which in the summer of 1831 was thrown up by a submarine eruption off the southwest coast of Sicily. In the course of less than a month, a cone of loose cinders, scoriæ and pumice was piled up to a height, it is said, of more than 200 feet above sea-level, with a circumference of three miles and a large crater inside. In about three months, this volcano was levelled with the surface of the sea.

As a consequence of the prolonged eruptions, the sea along the west coast of Central Italy must have become increasingly shallow. This result may not improbably have been expedited by that uplift of the whole region to which reference has above been made. In course of time, not only would volcanic cones appear as islands above sea-level, but the action of winds, waves and tidal currents would throw up bars or _lidi_, like those of Venice or those of more ancient date which traverse the alluvial plain on either side of the mouth of the Tiber. Further deposition of sediment, either from the volcanoes or from the torrents of the Apennines, would lead to the silting up of the lagoons between these bars. The hollows on the newly gained land would eventually become fresh-water lakes, and the drainage from the mountains would find its way by numerous channels across the low plain into the sea. Thus, the Tiber, escaping from its narrow estuary among the hills not improbably continued its southwesterly course, so as to pass across what afterwards became the great volcanic district of Bolsena and to enter the sea somewhere between Civita Vecchia and Orbetello. The Anio would thus at that time be the main stream in the Roman Campagna.

From the layers of lacustrine or fluviatile deposits in the tuff and also from cavities and fissures in the limestone-hills, which then as now rose abruptly from the edge of the volcanic plain, an interesting series of organic remains has been obtained which throw a vivid light upon the plants and animals of the centre of Italy in the volcanic period. So far as yet discovered, the flora was on the whole similar to that which still survives in the district. But the fauna was strangely different. If the remains have been correctly identified, the land animals of the time consisted of a curiously mixed assemblage, including, on the one hand, many forms which have long been extinct, together with some which still inhabit the surrounding region; and on the other hand, quadrupeds characteristic of southern Europe or Africa, as well as a few whose descendants are only found much farther north. The open glades were traversed by various species of deer, gazelle and wild ox, most of which are no longer living but which comprised the red deer and the reindeer. There were likewise herds of more than one kind of horse, whose bones have been found at some places in great numbers. The caverns and clefts in the hills were tenanted by lions and hyenas, lynxes and wild cats. The woods were haunted by brown bears, badgers, wolves and foxes. Strangest of all the denizens of the region were the huge pachyderms--mastodons, elephants, and rhinoceroses, including that northern form, the mammoth. Beavers built their dams across the smaller streams, while the hippopotamus disported himself in the rivers, which were likewise tenanted by several species of aquatic tortoises. There is occasionally something strangely incongruous in the circumstances under which the remains of these primeval creatures are found in places that have long been known only from their association with the course of Roman history. One of the most singular examples of this contrast was seen in the recent unearthing of a well-preserved tusk of a hippopotamus a few inches underneath the pavement of the atrium of the Vestal Virgins in the Forum Romanum. There can be little doubt that the main part of this curiously varied fauna had established itself in Italy long before the volcanoes first began their eruptions and that many of its most singular and characteristic members continued to live on during the volcanic period, for their remains have been exhumed from some of the later deposits. A few like the otter, the mole, the hare and the fox have remained in this region down to the present day.

It was after the Campagna had become a land-surface, tenanted by this remarkable assemblage of animals, that the manifestations of volcanic energy reached their climax. Instead of finding outlets in many minor vents that discharged showers of ashes and stones, it now broke out in a few large orifices from which not only copious discharges of fragmentary materials, but also streams of lava were emitted. In the district around Rome this greater localisation and more violent activity were specially concentrated in two areas separated from each other by an intervening plain about thirty-five miles broad. On the south side of this plain, the group of the Alban Hills was built up by many successive eruptions; on the north side, a chain of important vents stretched from Bracciano northwards to the great crater of Bolsena. Of these two areas, the southern comes more closely into connection with Rome and the Campagna, and as it tells its story vividly and fully, it claims our more special attention.

The Alban Hills, so striking a feature in the scenery of the region and so indissolubly associated with the early chronicles of the Eternal City, consist essentially of one great volcanic cone of the type of Vesuvius, with a base about twelve miles in diameter. This cone has been so greatly truncated that its summit, from one side of the rim to the other, measures about six miles. The highest point of the rim is 3,071 feet above sea-level. Inside lies the huge cauldron-like depression that formed the original crater of the volcano, encircled with steep slopes and rocky walls save on the north-west side towards Rome, where the continuity of the crater-ring has been destroyed.

The abrupt truncation of this cone, the disappearance of the western portion of its rim, the great size of its crater compared with the total height of the mountain, and the existence of a later cone and crater inside, together with a number of craters outside, suggest that the energy of the volcano culminated in a gigantic explosion, whereby the upper half of the cone, perhaps twice as high then as it is now, was blown away, leaving inside a yawning chasm or caldera that opened towards the west, where the wall was broken down. Such a paroxysm is known to have occurred in the history of other volcanoes. In the case of Vesuvius, for example, Monte Somma remains as a fragment of the earlier and ampler condition of the mountain, before the catastrophe in which the upper part and the southern half of the cone were blown away. Since that event a new and smaller cone, forming the present Vesuvius, has been piled up on the southern segment of the old crater-rim.

The explosion that eviscerated the Alban volcano must have caused widespread desolation over the surrounding country. It was not improbably followed by a long interval of repose. But the subterranean energy was not exhausted, though it never again showed itself on so vigorous a scale. We can trace, indeed, the signs of its gradual enfeeblement. When it recommenced its activity the vent, which served as the channel by which its eruptions took place, still retained its central position. Round this vent a new but much smaller cone, bearing witness to less vigour of eruption, was built up in the middle of the crater. This younger mass rises in Monte Cavo to a height of 3150 feet, the highest elevation on the whole mountain. It encloses a well-marked crater with the flat plain of the Campo di Annibale at its bottom. Eventually the central orifice came to be choked up by the lava that had risen and solidified with it, and as the volcanic forces still sought an outlet to the surface, they were compelled to find egress at other and weaker points of the volcano. At least two explosions took place on the old crater-rim and produced the deep-sunk and singularly impressive lakes of Albano and Nemi. Others broke out on the flanks of the great cone. Of these, the largest is marked by the crater of the Valle Arriccia, but at least two dozen of smaller size have been discriminated by the geologists of the Government Survey round the outer slopes of the volcano. These lateral vents not improbably mark the sites of the last eruptions.

While the Alban Mount was heaped up on the southern margin of the Campagna, another independent series of volcanoes rose on the northern border. The Lago di Bracciano marks the position of the vent that lay nearest to Rome. The huge cavity in which this sheet of water lies is some six miles in diameter and not improbably owes its origin to another and still more stupendous explosion than that of the Alban Hills. The level of the lake is 538 English feet above the surface of the Mediterranean, and as the water is as much as 900 feet deep, the bottom is 362 feet below sea-level. The crater wall still rises in the Rocca Romana to a height of 1,437 feet above the sea, or 900 feet higher than the lake which it encloses. Numerous streams of lava have poured down the outer slopes of the cone, especially on the southern flank. A few minor craters have been opened on its east side, and all round there still rise warm springs and emanations of sulphuretted hydrogen. To the north of this great vent lies another of similar character and origin but of smaller size, which now contains the Lago di Vico. The surface of this lake, which stands at a height of 1,663 feet above sea-level, is encircled by a crater-wall which on the west side mounts to nearly 1,600 feet above the sheet of water which it encircles. To the northeast rises the volcanic mass of Monte Cimino, 3,464 feet high. Still farther north is the largest of all the Italian crater-lakes, the Lago di Bolsena, which is no less than twenty-eight miles in circumference.

Having regard to the great variety of material in these different volcanic piles and to the evidence furnished by them that they were formed by many successive eruptions, perhaps separated from each other by long intervals of time, we cannot but be impressed with the antiquity of the great subaërial cones and the protracted period required by each of them for its formation. We must remember, too, that from the very beginning of their history they were ceaselessly attacked by the various agents of subaërial erosion. The first showers of rain that fell on their young slopes of incoherent ashes gathered into runnels which would plough furrows in their descent to the plain. Century after century these watercourses were cut deeper and wider until they have attained the dimensions of the numerous _fossi_ that now radiate from each crater-rim. In some cases these lines of erosion served as channels for the streams of lava that were poured down the slopes, as may be well seen on the southern flanks of the Bracciano volcano.

In most instances the molten rock stopped short on the flanks of its parent mountain, but it occasionally descended into the plain, as in the familiar example on the Via Appia, where the stream flowed from the side of the Alban volcano for some six miles to within a short distance of the site of the future capital of the world. The lava is here a firm, compact, durable stone admirably adapted for pavements, a use to which it has been extensively put for more than two thousand years, both within the walls and on the great high roads that radiate from them. Here, again, we see how bountifully Rome was favoured in regard to the materials needed for the construction of a great city.

The heaping of so much volcanic rock over the surface of the country must have greatly modified its topographical features. The drainage would especially be affected. Streams descending from the Apennines would find their direct passage to the sea blocked by the newly formed ridges, hills and mountains, and they might have to make long circuits before finding an exit. Lakes would gather in the hollows of the irregularly deposited tuff and others would fill up the cavities blown out by explosions, so as to become crater-lakes. The case of the Tiber may be cited in illustration of the deflection of drainage. In earlier times, as I have already remarked, this river probably flowed southwestwards across the site of the volcanic district of Bolsena and Viterbo; but in consequence of the subsequent eruptions, the lower part of its course was buried and the stream, diverted at a right angle, was made to run southeastwards, skirting the volcanic heights until, near Monte Soracte, it reached the plain between the base of the Bracciano and that of the Alban volcano, where it was able at length to find a seaward passage across the site of the future Rome.

That the early races of man witnessed and suffered from the latest eruptions may well be believed. The oldest traces of human occupation are stone implements, found more particularly in the higher river-gravels which, though they must undoubtedly date back to a remote antiquity, are certainly much later than the general mass of the tuff of the Campagna. Traditions of volcanic events seem to have survived into historic times. The pages of Livy, for example, contain references to showers of stones that fell in various places during the early centuries of Rome, and were regarded as portents of divine interposition in human affairs. We are told that in the hundredth year of the city showers of that kind fell on the Alban Mount, accompanied with loud noises from the wood on the summit. Again, in the year 540, fearful storms are said to have been experienced, while a fall of stones on the Alban Mount went on continuously for two days. Nineteen years later, amidst a miscellaneous series of prodigies, it is said to have rained stones at Aricia, Lanuvium, and on the Aventine. Such references have by some writers been interpreted as proofs of true volcanic eruptions, thus bringing the activity of the volcanoes around Rome well down into historic time. A supposed confirmation of this conclusion has been claimed to have been found on the ridge of Castel Gandolfo, where numerous burial urns containing cremated human remains have been unearthed five or six feet below the surface of the ground. Associated with some of these interments were fibulæ and objects in amber and bronze, together with specimens of Etruscan or Italo-Greek pottery of a beautifully Archaic pattern. It has been maintained that the superficial covering of volcanic material (which has even been called 'lava') has been the product of one or more volcanic eruptions, subsequent to the time of the burials, and hence that these eruptions must have taken place not only after the Stone Age, but even so late as after the coming of the Greek colonists. It has even been held that the shepherds of the Alban Hills, driven away from these heights by the violence of the volcanic disturbances, took refuge on the Seven Hills, where they founded the city and empire of Rome. More probably the volcanic detritus which overlies the cinery urns is of much more ancient date, the interments having been made by digging down through it, long after the last eruptions of the volcano had ceased.