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Show gs v JJ ; - lleved to have been an f aggregation of merchant Kf rr largely, and as such representative of the life mZf:iZfj and thought of the most I -ZZ'JZ- highly cultivated people -?TV of the times. One of the " Hlfl reasons for this belief In 'TTiri iWjlTu!r the different character of ,1J ll (1 X7W the two cities is the die-1fcL die-1fcL hi lull co very of such a large fik I 4 til if number of manuscripts at 1 Ef ' W Herculaneum. whereas at w' j I'ompell no manuscript ' C V DT b"en discovered. wy Some students of the ex- cavatlons attribute thle J ; wj fact to the greater de- JSrv-l- etructlon that took place ZS at i'ompell or to the fact .V that so many of the valu- ablea were removed, but tQ( p0int of view is dle-puted dle-puted by many persons. rO wno Kre of the belief that no manuscripts existed in this city of merchant Herculaneum in the time of its prosperity 00-cupled 00-cupled to Home somewhat the position which a suburban town of wealth in the vicinity of a great city fills today Well-to-do cltlxens of Home resorted thither for the benefit of their health, as its air was believed to be particularly exhilarating. Rest and quiet from the disturbing influences of the great center were found in the luxurious villas which were situated in and around Herculaneum. There seems to have been no Industry in the town except fishing, and the character of the ruins suggests that, like auch a prosperous suburban retreat of today, the settlement settle-ment rejoiced In all that wealth and care could afford of beauty and convenience. Agrlpplna the elder, according to Seneca, waa the owner of one of the most gorgeous of the villas In Hercu'aneum. which. It Is believed, waa destroyed by the Emperor Caligula because his mother had once been imprisoned therein. Another An-other splendid villa was the Casa del Paplrl. The Nonll of Nucerta were alao among the aristocrats of the time who had villas in the charming little town. According to rrofesor Hughes, "Herculaneum Is burled not under lava, rarely under natural cement, but generally under locally consolidated tuff (tuff Is the word most commonly used when the ash Is so far consolidated as to break into lumps). Seeing that we have reason to believe that at least as much ash has fallen since the first century A. D. as fell in "9 A. D.t the first thing to do Is to endeavor to distinguish between the successive eruptions. If we could find at the bottom of a layer of asb Just enough pottery or other relics to enable us to Identify them as belonging be-longing to the seventeenth century or earlier, that line should be traced with the greatest care. In this way we might feel our way back Into the remote past and perhaps somewhere make out upon satisfactory evidence bow deep some part of Herculaneum was buried in the eruption of 7 A. D." CHE question of ex- cavatlng Hercu- laneum has el- ways been a subs , vt.y.j Ject of Intense In- L " YlM terest for snvants. h Herculaneum was if f 5Jo a small provincial If - I S " ' ""f1- town which waa lj I , not famed even for Its com- S r.i. merce; but owing to Its post- IS , In . t' . tlon In the middle of the Hay II i . ) lip of Naplea, with Vesuvius and U ' l Mount Somma In the back- ' ground, the site waa a favor- j 1 Ite one with wealthy Romans N jr! for their villas. It was de- Vi '"'j strayed so rapidly by the St . l eruption of Vesuvius In A. D. 70 that the excavatlona there j I are aure to bring to light an- I , ctent life just as It waa lived. J ; I'ompell was burled slowly j 1 beneath volcanic ashes and much was saved from it by Its inhabitants, er dug out and dispersed by Pliny's contemporaries and by the barbarians who followed them even In civilized times. On the contrary, Herculaneum waa sealed in Us tomb In a few hours by the mixture of mud, aahes and scoria", and no one haa even been able to reach It, so hgh is the mountain of debris and hardened stone by which It was covered. "The entombment of Herculaneum," Hercu-laneum," says Mr. Waldsteln, was sudden, complete com-plete and secure, and thla was not the case with the other Campanlan cities, nor with Pompeii." From the excavations under Reslna treasures have already been obtained. "All Europe," wrote a correspondent of the Mercure de France in 1761. "impatiently supports the suspense in which it is held over the discoveries In ancient Herculaneum, Hercu-laneum, or Heraclea, as It Is now termed In Naples" Na-ples" Hut only at present has the Italian government gov-ernment ben able to think of accomplishing the gigantic task of unearthing the entire city, and it is most probable that the new tone given to the national spirit by the war may make the cuarge appear light which must be Imposed upon the budget In order to obtain a complete result In Roman official spheres there Is absolutely no knowledge of the existence of and project of Mr. J. Plerpont Morgan for excavations at Herculaneum. Hercu-laneum. Mr. Morgan's name bas been mixed up with this question owing to the fact that Mr. Charles Waldsteln, the author of an International project for unearthing the burled city, delivered a lecture on January 3, 1905, In his bouse In New York with the object of collecting the money necessary for the work, which was then estimated at 1.000.000 lire annually, at least He fore lecturing In New York Mr. Waldsteln had visited Rome and spoken on the matter with the king, Signor Glollttl and Signer Orlando, then minister of public Instruction. He had even obtained ob-tained from SlKnor Orlando a letter warmly com-mendlnir com-mendlnir the project, but In no way engaging bis responsibility. As soon as the Idea became known In Italy the press rslied violent protests and Signor Orlando was obliged to withdraw bis moral support from Mr. Waldsteln. Two years later an under secretary of state for education declared In the chamber of deputies that the Itallsn government reserved to Itself the faculty of making the necesssry excavations, and that a communion had been appointed with this object and funds supplied to the general direction di-rection of fine arts snd antiquities, the direction of which had Just been plaetd under Signor Cor-rado Cor-rado Rlccl. a world renowned writer on art Mr Waldsteln later published an account of his 111 lurk In Italy and America In a book upon Herculaneum which was much appreciated ("Herculaneum, ("Her-culaneum, Test, Present and Future," by Charles Waldsteln; London: Macmlllan k Co.. 1908). I saw Signor Glaeomo Ttonl this morning at the excavatlona on Mount Palatlno. where he bas Just made some lucky finds. hlcb led him to ask humbly: "Am I worthy of it?" He declared to tee that he knew nothing of any project of Mr. J. Plerpont Morgan In regard to the question of excavatlona at Herculaneum a question, moreover, more-over, that has been seUled. Signor Corrado Rlccl. general director of fine arte and antiquities, repested the same thing to me. He added. The Italian government will never I repeat never give permission to any one whatever to search the soil of the fatherland. We are not Turkey! Even though foreign gov-eramenta gov-eramenta should express the desire to excavate la certain places to complete their stodlee. we should hasten to andertake the work ourselves, at our own expense, and to place the material unearthed at the disposal of whoever wishes to study them "This Is what we have Just done for the Crsnd Durhy of Radew. which desired to know what was bidden under the soil of Loerta, la Crotena, la lift; im rWl ; lis- """""S 1 spends from two to three '".j. .-yiffiS. millions yearly In digging. jsHM fi Th" "cavatlons at Pom-yitilirlf Pom-yitilirlf Is Poll alone cost 300.000 lire "TVtc Jn t a year. The government ;Vly w,u aUo ,earcn the soil --r' of Herculaneum, but that is not so simple an under-rrJ under-rrJ taking as the uncovering J of I'ompell, over which jrjH) vineyards and olive groves Cs E have apread. Above Her- Magna Graecla. We ex-- ex-- "aaaT pended 30.000 lire to aatls iso" fy the wish. That la what "7l!x5- A we also for the Hrlt- JVtTTi 'Bn Archaeological school T'Qi ,n Rome' blch desired to ijl iVSy complete special re-TZI re-TZI TOvy searches in the Forum of aal Zy 'erva y 1 -rt,e Italian govern-!M5f govern-!M5f ment" Signor Corrado Rlccl continued, "already culaneum the city of Reslna is built and the expropriation ex-propriation of the land there is not so easy aa In the case of Pompeii. We have under consideration considera-tion a bill dealing with the proprUstf .ahlp of archaeological subsoils, which will probably allow al-low us to excavate Herculaneum by a series of underground galleries without demolishing the pretty little town which stands smilingly above it A commission has been appointed with thla object There ia no Immediate call for the under taking except that due to our praiseworthy curiosity. curios-ity. The world of science can wait; It has yet to study at least three-quarters of the objects found at Pompeii and In the vicinity, and the Jewels of art which are hidden under the lava are not perishing. On the contrary, the frescoes uncovered uncov-ered at Pompeii some fifty years ago are spoiling spoil-ing and falling Into ruin under the action of the air and dsmp." It Is little wonder that the entire world baa been so deeply Interested In the excavatlona at Herculaneum and that archaeologists and historians his-torians have treasured such an ardor for the completion of the unearthing of the ancient city for so msny years, for the conditions of Its tragic engulfment were such that It is generally believed these ruins more than any others will present a complete picture of the life of the times before the sepulture of the city. The more -suddenly the forces of nature did their work of destruction the more perfect have been found to ' be all the details of the buildings and their furnishings fur-nishings when the work of excavation has been completed. In the other cities where great excavations exca-vations hsve been made the destruction waa more gradual and great havoc waa wrought before the Anal sepulture took place. Thus, although some tit the other points at which excavations have been made were of greater Importance In the ancient world than was Herculaneum. It offers of-fers the most perfect opportunities for beholding an ancient settlement as It existed, with few Important details destroyed or disturbed. Another point which contributes to the greater Importance of Herculaneum as a field for archaeological archaeo-logical Investigation Is that the suddenness of the dlssster from which It suffered made It impossible impos-sible for the inhabitants to make an effort to save any of the valuable articles of their homes by attempting to remove them to some distant place. In Pompeii, for Instance, there was ample time to remove many of the moat precious belongings be-longings of the Inhabitants. Hut In Herculaneum this seems to have been Impossible, and the valuable val-uable objects of the rich households were buried beneath the mass of liquid mud which Inundated the city as securely aa If they had been locked In Impregnable vaulta. This mud waa an extraordinarily extra-ordinarily successful preserving fluid, to judge from the finds which have been made, for Instead of the surf see of objects having been burned and charred by hot ashes, aa was the case at Pompeii, at Herculaneum the objects discovered by the excavators were many of them In wonderfully perfect condition. P. route, marble and glass objects ob-jects were none of them severely dsmaged. and manuscripts were sufficiently preserved to male possible their restoration to a degree which Is highly high-ly satisfactory to archaeologists and hlstoriana That the modern world will be able to obtain a better Illustration of Hellenic culture as It waa represented In a Graeeo-Rotnaa town from the excavations at Herculaneum than from those at Pompeii Is the belief of many who have made a comparative study of the ruined cities. They adduce ad-duce this belief from the fact that Hercutaaeum la believed to have been less of a commercial settlement than waa Pompeii, aad that Us Inhabitants In-habitants were greatly more Interested la the ine arts and la all that pertained to the Diott advanced thought and culture of the times. The Inhabitants of Pompeii, on the other hand, are be- |