JOURNAL 
 
 O F A 
 
 Tour to ITALY. 
 

 CONTAINING, 
 
 (Among many other interesting and curious Particulars) 
 
 An Account of the Eruptions of 
 Mount VeSuvius. 
 
 Qf the Curiofities difcovered 
 at Herculanum 
 
 Of the leaning Towers of Pifa 
 and Bologna. 
 
 Detection of the Impoiitions 
 ufed in the pretended li- 
 quefying of the Blood of St. 
 januarius. 
 
 Parallel between the Horfe- 
 races at Rome and New- 
 market. 
 
 Defcription of Port Specii 
 and the neighbouring Coaft. 
 
 Of the famous Emerald, or 
 Holy Veffel, at Genoa. 
 
 Remarks on the Mountains 
 and Ice Valleys of Swiffer- 
 land, &c. &c. 
 
 By M. de la COND AMINE. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 Printed for T. Lewis, in Ruffel-ftreet, Covent-' 
 Garden, and G. Kearsly, in Ludgate-ftreet. 
 
 M DCC LXIIL 
 
T O 
 
 James West, E% 
 
 Fellow of the Royal and Antiquarian 
 Societies, Honorary Truftee of the 
 British Mufeum, Reprefentative in 
 Parliament for the Borough of St. 
 Albans, &c, &c, 
 
 S I R, 
 
 I F favours received are any 
 title to acknowledgements of 
 this fort, I know of no one who 
 has a better claim to them at my 
 hands. If a confeffed fine tafte 
 for the polite arts in general, with a 
 
 a 3 
 
 con- 
 
[ vi ] 
 
 eonfummate knowledge of the 
 fubjetfts here treated of in par- 
 ticular, are qualifications that 
 conftitute the requifites of a 
 patron, I know of no one at 
 whofe hands I can more properly 
 apply than at yours. In either 
 cafe, therefore, Sir, this ad- 
 drefs will have a peculiar pro- 
 priety. The fir ft the world will 
 readily allow me to be the beft 
 judge of. For the truth of the 
 fecond I appeal to thofe illuftri- 
 ous focieties of which you have 
 long been fo diftinguiftied a 
 member — -to that noble col- 
 lediion of fcarce and valuable 
 
 trails 
 
[ vii ] 
 
 trails in all languages and fci- 
 ences, which take up no incon- 
 liderable part of a very large 
 manfion, and which it requires 
 
 no vulgar hand to feleCt to 
 
 thofe beautiful cabinets of medals 
 in your poffefiion, in which we 
 fee difplayed fuch a regular feries 
 of the moil important events of 
 antiquity, and many of which 
 are hardly to be met with in any 
 other collection, either public or 
 
 private, now in being in fhort, 
 
 Sir, to the teftimony of all who 
 have either had the happinefs of 
 knowing you, or have ever heard, 
 with the lead: degree of precifion, 
 of your name. 
 
 It 
 
[ viii’ J 
 
 ft might be fufpedted, perhaps, 
 that I am here running on ac- 
 cording to the too general prac- 
 tice of dedicators, in extolling 
 virtues which owe their exiftence 
 to the imagination of the writer,, 
 who has at once created and 
 magnified them for his own 
 ends. But, Sir, there are two 
 very powerful reafons, which I 
 think muft fcreen me from an 
 imputation of this fort : the firft, 
 that I fpeak of well known fa6ts 
 the fecond, that I fanfy you will 
 be at a very great lofs to know 
 whom of the many perfons who 
 lie under obligations to you, this 
 prefent addrefs comes from. 
 
 You 
 
[ ix 3 
 
 You muft give me leave, Sir, 
 likewife to add, that however 
 forry for it I may be, confidered 
 in a public light, it affords me a 
 very fmgular pleafure as an in- 
 dividual, that I am able to ad- , 
 drefs you, Sir, on this occafion** 
 when the resignation of that ho- 
 nourable poft, which you dif- 
 charged for fo many years with 
 fuch Signal credit to yourfelf, 
 and Such advantage to the pub- 
 lick, puts it out of your power 
 to beftow the lead gratification 
 upon your friends, and conic— 
 qpently renders it the moil im- 
 proper time that I could have 
 
 chofcm 
 
[ x ] 
 
 chofen for a dedication founded 
 upon interefted views. For how 
 readily foever I can refign all 
 pretenfions to fame as a writer, I 
 fhould be forry to have it thought 
 tiiat I have not a Ipirit above 
 tny thing that is mean or fer- 
 vile , and as I have long known 
 the indignity with which the 
 ignorant, bin more fuccelsful part 
 of mankind, are apt to treat the 
 whole race of authors* it would 
 grieve me not a little to let drop 
 any thing on this occalion, that 
 could tend in the lead: to de- 
 preciate them in the eyes of the 
 vulgar. 
 
 To 
 
[ xi ] 
 
 To conclude then, Sir; you 
 are requefted to accept of the 
 following performance, as the 
 humble offering of a grateful 
 
 heart as a work which, from 
 
 the name of the author, and the 
 nature of the fubjedts it treats 
 upon, will probably be no difa- 
 
 greeable prefent to you and 
 
 as a very fmall token of that 
 great refpedt with which I have 
 the honour of being, 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Your obliged and 
 Very obedient 
 Feb. 21ft Humble Servant, 
 
 1763. 
 
 The Translator, 
 
E xiii 1 
 
 W ■ 1 1 ft A *1 IMillC IJ1 1 V I . Lie l^li Jl 11 I 
 
 y fo weir 
 known in the learned world, that 
 it is almoft unneceffary to fay an y 
 thing here in favour of his abi- 
 lities. While aftronomical re- 
 fearches are thought worthy re- 
 gard, his menfuration of a degree 
 of the Equator will not be for- 
 gotten; and though the differences 
 which arofe between the gentle-^ 
 men employed on that occafion; 
 
 ren- 
 
[ xiv ] 
 
 rendered thefe menfurations in 
 fome xneafure imperfect, yet every 
 one who is in the leaft conver- 
 fant with the particulars of the 
 voyage, knows that a very con- 
 liderable fhare of the perfection 
 they have is due to the indefa- 
 tigablenefs, accuracy, and un- 
 common qualifications of M. de 
 la Condamine. 
 
 Nor is it in aftronomical re- 
 fearches alone that he has fhown 
 himfelf thus excellent, but almoft 
 in every other fpecies of fcience. 
 In the Journal now before us, 
 we know not whether moft to 
 admire, the philofopher, thefcho- 
 
 lar, 
 
C xv J 
 
 lar, or the complete connoifieur 
 qualifications which, though fel- 
 dom united in one perfon, yet 
 all fhine fo eminently in him, 
 that we are at a lofs to fay which 
 he fiiines in mod. 
 
 To this happy union of talents 
 it is to be attributed, that in a 
 road already worn fo bare by fre- 
 quent enquiries, he has been able 
 to furnifh us with fo many new 
 difcoveries. For every thing to 
 fuch a mind affords matter of ob- 
 fervation ; and if on any occafion 
 he touches upon fubje&s that 
 have been treated of before, his 
 method oi handling them is fo 
 
 en- 
 
 VJ Q 
 
E xvi ] 
 
 entirely new, and his remarks fo 
 removed out of the common way, 
 that we only wifh he had touched 
 upon fuch fubje£ts oftener, as they, 
 would undoubtedly have fur- 
 niftred. us with opportunities of 
 oftener admiring him. 
 
 To inftance only in the Lava, 
 of Vefuvius, what a noble field 
 of philofophy has he opened to 
 us thfcre! a new fyftem of worlds 
 blazing forth upon us, and that 
 not founded upon mere hypo- 
 thefis and abftrufe fpeculation, 
 but upon facts which carry al- 
 moft the force of demonftration. 
 along with them ! 
 
 2 Non' 
 
[ xvit ] 
 
 Nor are our gentlemen of the 
 turf at all lefs obliged to him 
 than the curious enquirers into 
 the fecret works of nature. Hi- 
 therto we have been taught to 
 look upon the arts of the courfe 
 in a contemptible light, but M. 
 de la Condamine has fhown them 
 to be perfectly reducible to the 
 graver rules of philofophy; from 
 henceforward, therefore, we may 
 expert to fee fages themfelves not 
 difdain to appear at a horfe-race, 
 and our very fquires and jockeys 
 determining the velocity of thole 
 ufeful animals, not by make or 
 lize, but upon the moft profound 
 principles of the mathematicks. 
 
 We 
 
[ xviix ] 
 
 We may expecft to fee the doc- 
 trine of betting rendered, at leaf!:, 
 as eafy as that of any other game of 
 chance; and fome future Hoyle, 
 perhaps, arife, who from the 
 force of the obfervations here 
 laid down, and the aid of a few 
 figures, fhall teach our fp or ting 
 gentry to judge as well for them- 
 felves in this kind of fcience, as his 
 name- fake of immortal memory 
 has done in the very profound 
 games of whift and quadrille. 
 
 But, raillery apart, amidft the 
 many ufeful as well as agreeable 
 difeoveries made by our Author, 
 
 it 
 
k nmft afford every true Chri- 
 jftian a very fenfible pleaflire to 
 fee that dangerous impofition of 
 the church of Rome, which is 
 every year fo fhamefully repeated 
 in the pretended liquefa&ion of 
 St. Januarius’s blood, here fo 
 evidently overthrown and re- 
 futed. How a profefled papift 
 durft do this, I own is matter of 
 furprize to me j but that it was 
 done by a papift, at the fame 
 time that it is a moft convincing 
 / .proof of his own candour, is one 
 of the happieft circumftances in 
 favour of that undifguifed branch 
 of the Chriftian religion which 
 
[ XX ] 
 
 we profefs, that could pofiibly 
 have happened. 
 
 To conclude: as no perlbn 
 Items better formed by nature to 
 make thofe enquiries, which the 
 imperfe&ion of all human wif- 
 dom ftill leaves but too much 
 room for, fo nobody feems ever to 
 have made them with more unre- 
 mitted ardour and affiduity. Nor 
 is his modefty, wherever he has 
 occahon to mention himfelf, any 
 ways inferior to his abilities. 
 But candour, truth, and humi- 
 lity feem to have followed him 
 wherever he went ; and to thefe 
 
 ami-* 
 
C xxi ] 
 
 .amiable qualities, no doubt, 
 as well as to his uncommon 
 lhare of learning, are to be at- 
 tributed thofe great honours he 
 met with from the eminent in 
 every country through which he 
 palled. There is but one thing 
 that I know of in which the 
 bulk of mankind have reafbn to 
 be difpleafed with him ; and this 
 is, that when we lee lo many 
 of them, particularly of our 
 Englifh gentry, taking much 
 longer tours, from which never- 
 theless they return empty, though 
 poffeffed of all the necellary 
 means of improvement, M. de 
 
 la 
 
t xxu J 
 
 la Condamine, who let out in 
 an ill ftate of health, and un- 
 provided of any fuch advantages, 
 fhould furnifh out at once fuch 
 an agreeable and inftru&ive nar- 
 rative, as will for ever do honour 
 to his memory. 
 
advertisement. 
 
 A S two or three terms occur in 
 the following Journal, which it 
 is impoffible to tranflate well into any 
 other language, for the benefit of the 
 mere Englifh reader, we fhall here en- 
 deavour to explain them as well as we 
 can. Our more learned readers, for 
 whom this explanation is not intended, 
 will excufe us. 
 
 Facet, or Facette (the diminutive office) figni- 
 fies, in jewelry, the feveral little fuperficies into 
 which a ftone is cut. Thefe are often, though 
 improperly, called fquares , being for the moft part 
 either triangular or lozenges. 
 
 Goutte de Surf \ in Englifh, a tallozv drop, is ufed 
 to exprefs the furface of a chryftal, or other ftone, 
 cut in the rounding to the fame degree as a drop 
 of tallow on a plane. 
 
 Bn creux , or in hollow , in jewelry, filver work, 
 &c. is the reverfe of embojjed , in fculpture, of 
 relief. Thus in the former a coat of arms, See. 
 may be faid to be cut en creux , when engraven 
 in the ftone ; and folikewife of the latter, when 
 
 the 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 ^he figures are not raifed above the furface. In 
 moulding it fignifies the hollow foivn of the plafter 
 that has been laid on any raifed piece of work, in 
 order to take off the impreffion. 
 
 Relievo , or relief 9 the oppofite of the foregoing, 
 js applied in jewelry, fculpture, &c. to fuch figures 
 as are raifed above the furface of the work. Of 
 this there are two kinds j the firft called has (or 
 low) relief ; the other, haut (or high') relief s 
 .which differ from each other only in their greater 
 or lefs degree of prominency. The Italians djf- 
 tinguilh them by the epithets of bajfo or alto 7 often 
 to be met with in Englifh writers* 
 
 Bifeau , or bizzel , in precious ftones, is when 
 they are cut with a long plane, the length of the 
 ftone ; or, if round, as in a pidture or -watch- 
 glafs, fignifies a plane round the edge, terminating 
 .the rounded furface. Thus table-diamonds and 
 other precious ftones are faid to be cut en bifeau 9 
 when they have no facettes expreffed on them. It 
 fometimes alfo fignifies the hollow rim or moulding 
 of a focket made to receive a ftone. In all other 
 .arts, where the chiffel is ufed, it conveys pretty 
 jiearly the fame image. 
 
 JOURNAL 
 
JOURNAL 
 
 O F A 
 
 Tour to ITALY. 
 
 I N a Tour, wherein the re-efrablilh- 
 ment of my health was at Hrfl my 
 only ohjedt, unprovided of instru- 
 ments, which I even avoided carrying 
 with me, I was not able for the moll 
 pait to make any other obfqrvations, 
 than fuch as offered themfeives to me 
 of their ovyn accord, and which it re- 
 quired only eyes to fee. 
 
 B 
 
 I fh all 
 
[ * ] 
 
 I {hall not feek, therefore, to excufe 
 myfelf, if I bring not back a more am- 
 ple harveft from fuch a country as Italy, 
 where nature and art prefent a field fo 
 vafl to the curiofity of a traveller.. As 
 for thofe matter-pieces of fculpture, 
 painting, and architecture, as well an- 
 cient as modern, which are to be found 
 there, we have already defcriptions of 
 them tjy a matter ly hand : Befides, it 
 is my duty to confine myfelf in a me- 
 moir of this nature to matters which 
 are more particularly the province of 
 this academy. I fhall preclude my- j 
 felf, therefore, as foreign to my ob- 
 je&, from every detail relative to the ; 
 fine arts and ancient monuments, at 
 lead unlefs phyficks or the mathema- 
 ticks are particularly interefted therein* , 
 
 I fet out from Paris on the 28 th of 
 December, 1754- Tlie 7 th of J anu_ 
 
 3 ar y 
 
[ 3 ] 
 
 ary following, at the very inftant that I 
 was going to embark at Lyons, in or- 
 der to fall down the Rhone, that river, 
 being covered with ice, in fpite of its 
 rapidity ceafed any longer to be navi- 
 gable. A few days after, I faw car- 
 riages traverfing that branch of it which 
 bathes the walls of Avignon. I learned 
 alfo that it was the fame with the 
 branch which feparates the city of Arles 
 from Languedoc, and that the furface 
 of the other was entirely frozen over : 
 An uncommon event, of which hiflory 
 fur n idles very few examples. 
 
 It appears that the cold of the win- 
 ter between the years 1754 and 1755. 
 was feverer in our fouthern provinces, 
 than in the North of France. The li- 
 quor of two thermometers, divided into 
 degrees according to the method of 
 B 2 M. 
 
I 4 3 
 
 M. de Reaumur *, the one of Spirits of 
 wine, the other of mercury, being ex- 
 .pofed to the air, fell at Lyons, on the 
 17th of February, to between Sixteen 
 and feventeen degrees below the point 
 of freezing ; which is about two divi- 
 sions lower than the fame instrument 
 fell at Paris during the celebrated win- 
 ter of i 705). Another thermometer of 
 the fame conftru&ion, in a clofet ex- 
 pofed to the South, defcended at Arles 
 to the twenty-fecond degree ; while at 
 Marfeilles, in a latitude fomewhat more 
 northern, but in a Situation more Shel- 
 tered from the North winds, a like 
 thermometer fcarce attained to 4 | de- 
 grees beneath the point of freezing, 
 
 * In the obfervatory of Father Beraud, a Je- 
 fuit,profeSTorof mathematicks in the great college 
 at Lyons, and correfpondent of the Academy of 
 Sciences. 
 
 and 
 
[ 5 ] 
 
 and that only once in the fame win- 
 ter 5 that is to fay, on the 7th of Ja- 
 nuary in the morning, before the rifinp- 
 of the fun *. The fame day, inftru- 
 ments of the like conftrudtion marked 
 feven degrees at Montpellier, and eight 
 at Ni tries. 
 
 In the memory of man they had 
 never feen before at Montpellier two 
 feet depth of fnow. All the neigh- 
 bouring fields, as far as the fight could 
 extend, were ftill fo covered with it in 
 the beginning of February, that it 
 reached in feveral places up to the 
 middle of the wheels of my chaife. 
 Languedoc and Provence prefented me 
 with an afpedt of the fummit of the 
 
 The latitude or Montpellier is about 43 1 
 36' *- ; that of Arles 43 d 40' j ; that of M<ir- 
 filles 43d 1 8k 
 
 B 3 
 
 Cor- 
 
t 6 ] 
 
 Cordilleras of Peru. The verdure of 
 the hedges and olive-trees, which even 
 winter ftrips not there of its leaves, had 
 now entirely difappeared beneath the 
 fnow : No other object met my eyes. 
 A Laplander would not have believed 
 himfelf out of his own country. 
 
 The Pont du Card, the ancient tem- 
 ple vulgarly called the Square-Houfe, 
 the Amphitheatre, all thofe beautiful 
 remains of antiquity at Nimes and its 
 environs, comparable even to the moft 
 remarkable of the kind that Italy itfelf 
 prefents, enter not, as I have already 
 laid, into the plan of this memoir : 
 But can a traveller who takes up the 
 pen, at leaft unlefs he be blind, or a 
 mifanthrope, pafs over in filence the 
 beauty, the convenience of our high- 
 ways, now become perfedl walks ? An 
 advantage of fuch importance to a 
 
 Hate, 
 
ftate, and which fo many people enjoy 
 without knowing the value of it * an 
 advantage referved for our age, our 
 country, and the prefent admiriiftra- 
 tion ; an. advantage fo envied France as 
 happily to excite the emulation of all 
 her neighbours : The many labours of 
 this kind which I have feen in Piemont, 
 Tufcany, and the Ecclefiaftical State, 
 are witneffes hereof ; but thefe laft ap- 
 proach by no means in goodnefs, if we 
 may believe common fame, to thole 
 admired ones on. the new road from 
 Triefte to Vienna, opened through the 
 ▼ery middle of the mountains of Ifhia 
 and Friouli, under the aufpices of the 
 emprefs -queen, with a magnificence 
 worthy the ancient Romans. 
 
 Why do we fiill hefitate to adorn 
 the fides of all our high roads with 
 boundaries placed at equal diftances ? 
 
 B, 4 an 
 
[ 8 ] 
 
 an ancient cuftom, of which we can- 
 not fufticiently extol the agreeablenefs 
 and utility ; a cuftom eftablifhed 
 among divers of the modern nations in 
 the Eaft ? and which it is aftonifhing 
 that all Europe has not yet adopted. 
 This cuftom has juft introduced itfelf 
 into the papal territories by the orders 
 of the reigning pontiff * : An infcrip- 
 tion to be read on a bridge as we draw 
 near to Rimini, points out, with an 
 elegant and Laconic ftmplicity, the de- 
 ftgn of thefe boundaries : Viatorum fo~ 
 latio & commoditati : For the confola- 
 tion and convenience of travellers. 
 
 The ancients contented themfelves 
 with marking on their ftones the num- 
 ber of miles, to be counted from the 
 
 * Benedict XIV. who died in 1758. 
 
 Capitol. 
 
[ 9 ] 
 
 Capitol*. They have improved on this 
 cuflom in the. new boundaries placed 
 along the high roads of Languedoc, by 
 order of the hates of that province, and 
 under the direction of M. Pitot of this 
 academy. Thefe boundaries are fquare, 
 
 * The method obferved in this refpe£t by the 
 Romans admits of fome debate. Tacitus in- 
 forms us, that they computed their miles from 
 a golden pillar (xpw Sv /d?uov, though, by the 
 way, it is faid to have been only of white mar- 
 ble, about eight feet high, with a gilt ball at top, 
 from whence it is fuppofed^to have obtained the 
 epithet of golden) eredted by Auguflus near the 
 temple of Saturn, at Rome. From this column, 
 (tones were placed at equal diftances throughout 
 all the high roads of Italy. Now the queftion 
 among the learned is, whether the numbers, II, 
 III, &c. Tnarlced on thefe (tones, denoted as 
 many miles from the city, or only the fecond and. 
 third (tone from the above-mentioned pillar, 
 whereon was engraven figure I. This laft opi- 
 nion has the greateft number of followers. Tbs- 
 gtas’-s Eutropiu!. 
 
 B ^ 
 
 four 
 
[ 10 ] 
 
 four feet above the earth, and have one 
 of their angles turned towards the road, 
 in fuch a manner, that a paflenger dif- 
 covers at once the two faces of this fa- 
 liant angle. On the one, he reads how 
 many thoufand toifes he has travelled 
 iince the morning, and on the other how 
 many thoufand toifes remain to be com- 
 pleted before night. The fum of 
 thefe two numbers (hews the distance of 
 the two places, which are the ordinary 
 days journey of the traveller. 
 
 Another example of the ancients, re- 
 specting their highways, would per- 
 haps be worthy of imitation. I have 
 obferved in thofe remains of their roads 
 which are yet fubfifling, that the joints 
 of thelarge ftones wherewith they are 
 paved, are never placed in the fame di- 
 rection with the highway ; a circum- 
 stance by which it comes to pafs, that 
 
 the 
 
[ II ] 
 
 the wheels of carriages meeting with 
 the joints- in no other pofition than 
 obliquely, tend of courfe lefs to difun its 
 the flones*. 
 
 At my return from Montpellier to 
 Avignon, where I made a fecond flay, 
 I found there her Royal Highnefs the 
 Margravine of Bareith, filler to the king 
 of Pruffia, who paffed the winter in 
 that city. I admired in this princefs 
 thofe marks of knowledge and talents* 
 
 * A tryal of this has been made in the environs 
 of Paris j but there fome inconveniences were 
 found to arife from it, proceeding perhaps from 
 the fmallnefs of the ftones with which our high- 
 roads are paved, they being only eight inches fquare * 
 but principally from the increafe of labour, which 
 the neceffity of ramming down the faliant angles 
 of thefe pavements demands, in order to render 
 the two fides of the caufey even, 
 
 B <> 
 
 io 
 
[ ia ] 
 
 To very uncommon in perfons of her 
 iex and rank. I faw in the hands of 
 one of her ladies of honour a watch- 
 cafe, cut facet-wife, which refembled 
 polifhed Heel ; on examination, I per- 
 ceived that the matter whereof it was 
 made, was not unlike that fpecies of 
 mineral Hone, of which great numbers 
 are found in the ancient fepulchres in 
 l eiu. i hey are plane and fmooth on 
 one fide, convex and conick on the other, 
 and known in that country under the 
 name of the Incas Looking-glajfes. It 
 is a fort of pyrite which ftrikes fire with 
 fleel. This matter has nothing metal- 
 lick in it, though it has all the appear- 
 ances thereof. It receives the hneft 
 polifh, and is not fufceptible of ruft; 
 which made me imagine it might be 
 proper for making glades for refleding 
 telefcopes : but though I brought back 
 feveral pieces of it, cut at Quito, 
 
 fome 
 
[ >3 ] 
 
 fome en gouttes de SuiJ \ others brilliant, 
 fit for making buckles or buttons, I 
 never could find at Paris any workmen 
 who knew how to polifh the rough 
 fragments well, which I put in their 
 hands. It has befides a yellowish tint, 
 which would infallibly alter the colour 
 of objects. Germany has mines of this 
 matter ^ and I learned that the watch- 
 cafe which I faw before my eyes, had 
 been cut at Bareith, where they find alfo 
 feveral fpecies of coloured flints j and 
 among others, a yellow one on a grey 
 ground, of which they make beautiful 
 cameos. With refpedt to the watch- 
 cafe made of pyrite, the matter of it ap- 
 peared to me much lefs beautiful, and 
 of a lefs lively polifh, than thofe pieces 
 which I brought from Quito. 
 
 I afterwards rejoined, in my feveral 
 excurfions in Italy, the margravine, and 
 
 the 
 
[ 1 + ] 
 
 the prince her fpoufe. The prefents 
 with which they honoured me, and thofe 
 diftributed by them in the places where 
 they made any flay, have frequently 
 furnifhed me with an opportunity of ©b- 
 ferving the {kill of the German work- 
 men in an art too much negledted by 
 us, that of cutting en creux , as well as 
 in relief, flints, agates, jafpers, porphyries, 
 lapis lazuli, cornelians, emeralds and 
 amethyfts j and of reprefenting, by in- 
 crufting thefe ftones one upon another, 
 flowers and animals in relief, with their 
 natural colours. 
 
 The great quantity of marble em<* 
 ployed in their edifices was the firfl; thing 
 which ftruck me in Italy. Temples 
 and palaces, cafed with white marble, 
 are very common at Genoa. 
 
 In 
 
T >5 ] 
 
 In the treafury belonging to the ca- 
 thedral of that city is preferved, with 
 the greateft veneration, for upwards of 
 fix hundred years, a difh, or rather an 
 hexagon bowl, which they pretend to be 
 made of emerald. It has two final! 
 handles, and confifts of one fingle piece : 
 its greateft diameter is about fourteen 
 inches and a half j its height, five inches 
 nine lines 5 its thicknefs, three lines. 
 This monument is kept under feveral 
 keys, depofited in different hands. When 
 it is fhown, which happens but feldom, 
 and by virtue only of a decree of the 
 fenate, the veffel is let down by* a cord, 
 paffed through its two handles, and fuf- 
 pended around the prieft’s neck, who 
 prefides at the exhibition j but never 
 goes out of his hands. By an ancient 
 decree of the fenate, bearing date 24th 
 of May 1476, if is forbid, under fevere 
 penalties, to approach too near this fa- 
 
 cred 
 
r j 
 
 cred veflel (// facro catino ), and much 
 more to touch it with any metal what- 
 foever. All this apparatus and thefe 
 difficulties feem only fo many precau- 
 tions taken again# thofe who might 
 want to fatisfy themfelves by fome proof, 
 fuch as that of the file, or graving-tool, 
 whether the matter of which this veffel 
 is compofed, be really of the. hardnefa 
 of an emerald. 
 
 Neverthelefs they produce an adt, by 
 which it appears that the veffel was. 
 pledged by deliberation of the fenate, 
 in 1 3 ip, during- the- liege of Genoa, to 
 cardinal Luke de Fiefqui, for a lum 
 equivalent to twelve hundred marks of 
 gold, and that this fum was paid off 
 and the pledge withdrawn twelve years 
 after. This feems to prove, that the 
 great value of the matter of this depofit * 
 was at that time without fufpicion. 
 
 I fee 
 
C 17 3 
 
 I fee not what preemption in favour 
 of the matter of this veffel can be drawn 
 from the circumftance of one of its han- 
 dles being cracked j nor how this proof, 
 which is fuppofed to have been made in 
 the prefence of the emperor Charles V. 
 could afcertain the genuinenefs of the 
 emerald. 
 
 The princes Corhni, grand nephews 
 to pope Clement XII. whom I had the 
 honour of accompanying from Mar- 
 feilles to Genoa, having obtained from 
 the fenate the neceffary decree to fee 
 this monument, I availed myfelf of the 
 opportunity in order to examine it. I 
 viewed it attentively, oppofing it to the 
 light of a large taper. The colour ap- 
 peared to me of a very deep green : I 
 perceived not in it the leaf!: trace of thofe 
 icicles, draws, clouds, and other defeats 
 of tranfparence fo common in emeralds 
 
 and 
 
C 18 ] 
 
 and all other precious flones of the leaf! 
 thicknefs, even in rock chryflal 3 but I 
 diflinguifhed very evidently feveral 
 little voids, rcfembling fmall bubbles 
 of air, of a round or oblong form, fuch 
 as are commonly found in chryflals, or 
 glafs, whether white or coloured. 
 
 One would not expedt that a pre- 
 judice of the twelfth century fhould be 
 blindly refpedted in the eighteenth 3 ne- 
 verthelefs I know not that any modern 
 traveller has combated it 3 and the Ge- 
 ographical Di&ionary of Martinere, edi- 
 tion 1740, fays pofitively, “ that they 
 “ preferve at Genoa a precious veffel 
 “ ofineflimable value,” which affertion I 
 am the more aflonifhed at, as my doubt 
 is by no means new. It is clearly in- 
 dicated in the expreflions employed by 
 William archbifliop of Tyre, about four 
 centuries ago, where he fays, that at the 
 
 taking 
 
I 19 1 
 
 taking of “ Casfarea this veffel fell by 
 “ lot, for a large fum of money, to the 
 cc Genoefe, who believed it to be an eme- 
 “ raid, and who fhow it ftill asfuch,and 
 ‘ ‘ as fomething wonderful, to {hangers.*” 
 For the reft, it belongs only to thofe 
 whom thefe fufpicions may difpleafe, to 
 deftroy them, if they are not well foun- 
 ded ; and I have not entered into this 
 detail, but in the hope that a fa<ft, the 
 clearing up of which is fo eafy, will not 
 remain any longer in obfcurity $ or that 
 this obfcurity, if it fhould continue, will 
 change thefe fufpicions into certainty. 
 
 I drew the figure and dimenfions of 
 the veffel of Genoa, fuch as I now lay 
 
 * Januenfes .... Smaragdinum reputantes , pro 
 multa pecumce fumma in fortem recipientes 
 que hodie tranfeuntibus. ... Fas idem quafi pro mi - 
 raculo folent ojiendere , &c. Quill. Tyr. Archiepifc. 
 Lib. X. Cap. XVI. 
 
 them 
 
t 20 ] 
 
 them before this aflembly, from a work 
 published at Genoa in 17 ad, by a re- 
 ligious of the Auguftine order, and filled 
 with hiftorical refearches on this fub- 
 jedt. The author leaves undecided the 
 queftion which he propofes to himfelf, 
 whether this precious moveable was 
 brought by the Genoefe from the fiege 
 ofCasfareain Paleftine, in the year 1101 
 (as appears evident by the teftimony of 
 William of Tyre) or from the fiege of 
 Almeria, taken by the Moors in 1147; 
 but he difcuffes with great erudition 
 through what hands the veffel has paffed, 
 fince the queen of Sheba made a prefent of 
 it to Solomon, to the time wherein it was 
 employed to ferve up the pafchal lamb 
 to our Saviour on the eve of his paffion : 
 this is a point on which our author has 
 not the lead; doubt. As for what re- 
 fpedts the matter of it, he maintains that 
 it is certainly an emerald; and his 
 
 ftrongefl 
 
[ 21 j 
 
 ftrongeft argument is, that the matter of 
 a veffel which ferved for the Tapper 
 wherein our Lord inftituted the auguft 
 facrament of the Eucharift, could not 
 be too precious. This principle once 
 admitted, would lead the author farther 
 than he defires, and prove that the difh 
 ought to be a diamond. 
 
 I faw at Rome, in the hands of M. 
 Affemani, prelate of the Maronites, and 
 keeper of the Vatican library, two trans- 
 parent ftones, of a very beautiful green 
 colour. I learned from him that he had 
 brought them from Egypt, and that they 
 were taken out of a large block which 
 he faw entire. The larged: of thofe 
 pieces is about fix inches long, by three 
 and a quarter broad, and two or two 
 and a half thick. They are looked upon 
 as emeralds. This I can certify, that 
 they have the hardnefs of one : The 
 
 graving 
 
[ ** ] 
 
 graving tool which I applied to them left 
 no marks behind : they are belides of a 
 great clearnefs : the colour is by much 
 lefs deep, though on a greater thicknefs, 
 than that of the difh of Genoa : the 
 tranfparency of it is every where equal : 
 in fhort I obferved not in it the lead: de- 
 feat ; a circumdance, it is true, very rare 
 in emeralds, even of a lefier bulk ; but 
 what is dill more, I perceived not in it 
 the lead bubble of air, a defedt fo com- 
 mon in cad glafs. Thefe two pieces 
 are nothing in comparifon of a done of 
 the fame colour, weighing upwards of 
 twenty pounds, and of a quadrangular 
 form, which is kept in the convent of 
 Reichenau, near Condance, being a pre- 
 fent of Charlemagne’s to that abby. It 
 is pretended that the Monks made a 
 confiderable fum of the fragments alone, 
 but were not able to obtain the permif- 
 ikm of the emperor Charles VI. to fell 
 
 the 
 
[ *3 } 
 
 the reft. I have never feen this ftone ; 
 but its figure, and the dimenfions of the 
 block, are to be found inKeyfler’s Ger- 
 man Travels, printed at Hanover in 
 1740 +. 
 
 We know not now-a-days of any 
 other emeralds than thofe which are 
 drawn from America, or the new king- 
 dom of Grenada. Hiftorians relate, 
 that at the time of the difeovery of the 
 new world, the Spaniards found great 
 numbers of them at Puerto Viejo, and 
 Manta, on the eoaft of Peru, in the pro- 
 vince of Quito. It is pretty fingular, 
 that even the tradition of this fhould 
 
 f The emerald our author here alludes to is in 
 fize larger than a common folio, two inches thick, 
 and weighs twenty-eight pounds three quarters. 
 See Bufching’s Geography, Englifh tranflation, 
 vol. 5th. page 165. 
 
 now 
 
[ M ] 
 
 now be loft j but that I can affert for a 
 truth, after ftridt enquiries which I made 
 in the country. The River of Emeralds, 
 which I travelled up to its fource, the 
 Indian hamlet fituated near the mouth 
 of it, the little mountain, in fine, the 
 very province of which the late Don 
 Pedro Maldonado, my companion in 
 the voyage up the river Amazons, was 
 governor, all thefe places bear ftill the 
 name of Efmeraldas, but preferve only 
 the name. Not the leaft veftige is to 
 be feen there of the ancient works 5 and 
 if there ever have been any, the memory 
 of them is entirely loft among the natives 
 of the country. 
 
 We are as little inftrudled in the na- 
 tural hiftory of the emerald, and in the 
 difference of the occidental and oriental 
 ones, whofe very exiftence Tavernier 
 denies. We know as little of the places 
 
 from 
 
[ 2 ? ] 
 
 from whence the ancients drew theirs. 
 What we read in Herodotus and Pliny, 
 of the prodigious bignefs of fome of 
 them, appears fo remote from any like- 
 lihood of truth, thatit were to be wifhed, 
 at leaf!; that what concerns the larged; and 
 mod: celebrated emeralds now in Europe, 
 were well known and thoroughly fet- 
 tled. 
 
 Almofl all the rocks on the coafl of the 
 flate of Genoa, are of ardoife or marble. 
 A little beyond thefe we find at about 
 a league’s diflance from the fea, in the 
 principality of MafTa, the fmall city of 
 Carrara, a new Paros, from whence they 
 draw a beautiful marble, which we name 
 Carrara, the whited; and mod; proper of 
 any for fculpture. 
 
 In pading from Genoa to Lerici on. 
 board a felucca, I entered the gulf of 
 C Specia, 
 
[ *6 ] 
 
 Specia, where I faw a fpring of fredi 
 water in the midft of the fea. This 
 gulf, on the borders of which are feen 
 the ruins of the ancient city of Luna, 
 deftroyed by the Saracens, forms the 
 mod: beautiful and larged: port of the 
 Mediterranean, and perhaps of the whole 
 world. It is of this port that Silius Ita- 
 licus faid, 
 
 non fpatiojior alter 
 
 Tnnumeras cepiJJ'e rates , & claudere 
 pontum . Lib. viii. V. 481. 
 
 It comprehends within its fweep, and in 
 its bays, feveral other ports : two naval 
 armaments may lie there at anchor, 
 without feeing each other. 
 
 The port of Leghorn, its advanta- 
 geous fituation for commerce, and the 
 protection of the great dukes of Medicis, 
 
 have 
 
[ VJ ] 
 
 have raifed, in lefs than two centuries, 
 from a hamlet to a flourifhing city, and 
 peopled with 40,000 inhabitants ; tho’ 
 fituated on a coaft defert, marfhy, and 
 unhealthy, as the greatefl part of the 
 maritime towns of Tufcany and the 
 Ecclefiaftical State are. This example 
 proves, that with care, expence, and a 
 fettled fyflem of government (condi- 
 tions difficult to affemble together) the 
 moft unhealthy countries may become 
 habitable, cultivated, and fertile. 
 
 The excavations which publick 
 works bring along with them, are al- 
 rnoft always the occafion of fome new 
 difcovery in the foffil kind. The la- 
 bours created by the port of Leghorn 
 greatly enriched the celebrated cabinet 
 of the chevalier de Baillon, which the 
 emperor has purchafed, and which that 
 C 2 prince 
 
E *8 3 
 
 prince caufed to be tranfported from 
 Florence to Vienna a few years ago. 
 
 His imperial majefly fends into all parts 
 of the world naturalifls and draughtfmen 
 in order to gather new harvefts. In 
 my way to Marfeilles, I received a viflt 
 from a young Dutch phyfician, who 
 was on the point of embarking with 
 two affiftants for Spanifh America : He 
 was charged to make collections there 
 of every kind for the emperor’s cabinet 
 at Vienna. 
 
 His imperial majefly ’s tafte for natu- 
 ral hiftory is fo flrong, is feconded with 
 fo much zeal by his fubje&s, that his 
 cabinet, formed in a few years, bears 
 the palm at prefent, in the mineralogic 
 part, according to the teflimony of a 
 very intelligent and indifputable wit- 
 
 nefs, 
 
[ *9 ] 
 
 nefs, from the two moft celebrated ca^ 
 binets in Europe taken together $ to 
 wit, that of his mod Chriftian majefty, 
 and the Britifh cabinet purchafed of the 
 heirs of Sir Hans Sloane by the govern- 
 ment of England. A powerful prince 
 has but to delire, natural difficulties 
 fmooth themfelves before him, and 
 moral impoffibilities difappear. 
 
 Tufcany abounds in minerals and in 
 foffils of every kind 5 cabinets of na- 
 tural hiftory are more common there 
 than in other parts of Italy. The mar- 
 quis Ginori, governor of Leghorn, has 
 purfued his enquiries for feveral years 
 pad, with conliderable labour, into the 
 earths, ftones, minerals, and all the 
 foffils of the country. He has ffiown 
 me his tables, containing the refult of 
 his feveral experiments on matter vitri- 
 fiable and calcinable, pure and mixed 
 c 3 in 
 
E 3° ] 
 
 in different proportions, fubje&ed to 
 the fire, or fubmitted to the aCtion of 
 various diffolvents. In the manufactory 
 of Porcelaine, eftablifhed at his ex- 
 pence at Florence, pieces are made of 
 very confiderable bignefs. I have feen 
 there ftatues and groupes half as large 
 as the life* modelled after the mod; 
 beautiful antiques. His furnaces are 
 made with a great deal of art, and 
 cated with bricks of the fame mate- 
 rials with the porcelaine. The clay 
 of this is very beautiful; and one might 
 perceive in the grain of the broken 
 pieces all the qualities of the belt por- 
 celaine from China. They wilh indeed 
 to that of Florence a whiter varnifh 
 for the ground ; and this perfection 
 would not probably be wanting to it, 
 if the marquis Ginori had not made it 
 a law with himfelf, to employ no other 
 
 materials 
 
£ 31 ] 
 
 materials than thofe which he draws 
 out of the very country *, 
 
 I faw, in a cabinet at Leghorn, a 
 piece of the jaw-bone of an elephant, 
 petrified into agate, and weighing near 
 twenty pounds. I have fpoken elfe- 
 where of a grinder (it was not known 
 of what animal) weighing between 
 two and three pounds, in like manner 
 converted into agate, and found at Tu- 
 cuman, in North America, where there 
 are no elephants. It made part of a 
 confiderable cargo, the lofs of which I 
 have already deplored, confiding of a 
 pretty large number of fcarce pieces, 
 deftined for the king’s cabinet, which 
 
 * The marquis Ginori is dead fince the read- 
 ing of this memoir; and I know not into what 
 hands his papers and the tables containing the re- 
 fult of his experiments are fallen. 
 
 C 4 
 
 I ad" 
 
. I 3 * 3 
 
 l addrdfed to the academy by way of 
 the late M. de Fay, and embarked at 
 Callao, the port of Lima, on board a 
 veffel which failed for Panama on the 
 id of May 1737 *. 
 
 At another perfon’s in Leghorn I 
 law three fmall animals, which they 
 call in Italy ‘Taupe s de Carthage . They 
 are like fquirrels : Their two fore- paws 
 are very fhort, and ferve them- inftead 
 of hands ; they go only by leaping on 
 their hind-feet. It appears that Arifto- 
 tle and Theophraftus knew this ani- 
 mal ; we find a very minute defcrip- 
 tion of them in the Tufcany magazine 
 
 * 7J5 j a periodical work, which ap- 
 peared monthly, under the direction of 
 
 * See the hiftorical journal of a voyage to 
 the Equator, publilhed at the Louvre in 1750^ 
 note, page 104. 
 
 the 
 
[ 3J ] 
 
 tile Abbe Venuti, provoft of the church 
 of Leghorn, and aifociated-ftranger of 
 the academy of Belles-Lettres at Paris,, 
 who delired that I would lodge with 
 him during my abode at Leghorn. 
 
 I arrived at Pifa on the very night 
 of the eclipfe of the moon of the 27th 
 of March 1 755. M. Perelli, profefTor 
 of aftronomy in the univerlity of that 
 city, communicated to me the phafes* 
 which he had obferved, and fome 
 other remarks ; fuch as the latitude of 
 the obfervatory of Pifa, which in 1753 
 was 43d 43' i", and the obliquity of 
 the ecliptick, which was 23d 28' 19". 
 
 Pifa has loft much of its ancient fplen-- 
 dor : We ftill fee there, neverthelefs, 
 temples, towers, and a very beautiful . 
 bridge of white marble, not to men- 
 tion the columns and’ other monuments 
 C 5 of 
 
[ 34 ] 
 
 of antiquity brought thither from 
 Greece. The cathedral, an immenfe 
 building, is cafed with the fame mar- 
 ble. There is no other material in a 
 chapel called St. Epina’s (or the Holy 
 Thorn) built alone out of the iavings 
 of a beggar. The round tower, near 
 the cathedral, is of the moft beautiful 
 marble of Carrara. This tower, which 
 is ornamented with feven rows of pil- 
 lars, without counting that of the tur- 
 ret, was built near fix hundred years 
 ago. It is about four toifes in diame- 
 ter, and is particularly famous for its 
 inclination, which makes it look at 
 £rft fight as if it threatened ruin. Some 
 have pretended, that it was built out of 
 defign with this apparent defed. This 
 ridiculous conjedure, adopted by Mar- 
 tiniere’s didionary, is confuted by the 
 flighted attention. All the lintels of 
 the doors are fhattered $ the bearings of 
 
 the 
 
[ 35 I 
 
 the ftone are not horizontal ; the great- 
 eft part of all the ancient towers in 
 Pifa incline in the like direction} feve- 
 ral of the uprights and fpurs of the ca- 
 thedral lean the fame way;, which 
 proves that the ground- plat of thefe 
 edifices being built before the ufe of 
 foundations upon piles, it has verged 
 towards the South, which is on the 
 fide towards the river. 
 
 An evident proof that the ground 
 of Pifa is not folid is, that the ob- 
 fervatory of that city, a very beauti- 
 ful building, eredted about ten years 
 ago, on the foundations of an an- 
 cient tower, funk in the month of 
 March 1755 upwards of a Paris foot.. 
 This is what M. Perelli, then director 
 of that . oblervatory^ ' allured himfelf 
 of. 
 
 € 6 
 
 I me a- 
 
C 36 ] 
 
 I meafured with a line and plummet 
 tne height and inclination of the tower 
 of Pifa : The defed: of its level is 
 about . thirteen feet, Paris meafure, 
 counting from the foot of the baluf- 
 tiade placed on the platform, to the 
 foot of the cupola or little turret on 
 top, in which are the bells. I found 
 the height of the faid platform above, 
 the level of the place, or fuperficies of 
 the ground on which the cathedral 
 food, to be a hundred and thirty- 
 three feet y to which adding about 
 twenty-feven feet more for the height 
 of the turret (which leans more than 
 the body of the tower),, eight feet for 
 the depth of the trench, and about two 
 feet, which the line meafured fnce the 
 operation, uncharged with any weight, 
 would have appeared fhorter,; wefhall 
 have foi the total height of the tower 
 a hundred and feventy feet, on the 
 
 fide 
 
[ 37 1 
 
 fide where it inclines moft $ infomucfi, 
 that were it fet upright again, it would 
 be within a very little of a hundred 
 and feventy-two feet high *. This 
 
 height 
 
 * A remarkable curiofity of this kind, though* 
 like moft other Englifh curiofities, little known- 
 or regarded, is to be feen in Caerphilly-caftle in 
 Gl'amorganfhire, in South Wales. Amidft the 
 many other tremendous pieces which compote 
 that vaft pile of ruins, is a large tower, nearly 
 towards the Eaft end, which every moment, 
 threatens deftru&ion to the unwary paflenger. 
 Its height is not by a great deal fo much as that 
 of Pifa, being not above feventy or eighty feet, 
 at moft; but from the top down almoft to the 
 middle runs a large fifliire, by which the tower 
 is divided into two feparate parts, fo that each 
 fide hangs over its bate, in fuch a manner that it 
 is difficult to fay which is moft likely to fall firft. 
 According to the opinion of the ingenious Mr.. 
 Wood of Bath, who lay upon his back for feveral 
 minutes to view this dreadful ruin, its lineal pro- 
 ■ je&ion, on the outer fide, is not lefs than ten 
 
 feet 
 
[ 38 I 
 
 height is not the half of that of the 
 tower of Afinelli at Bologna. The 
 latter is only of brick j its form fquare; 
 but its bafe appears much ftraighter 
 than that of the tower of Pifa* They 
 give to the tower of Afinelli three hun- 
 dred and feventy-one Rhinland feet,, 
 which make near three hundred and 
 fifty-eight of ours. The towers of the 
 church of Notre Dame at Paris are no 
 more than two hundred and four. 
 Another tower at Bologna, called the 
 Garifenda , of the fame materials, the 
 fame form, and the fame diameter, 
 feemingly, as the tower of Afinelli,, 
 appears to the eye to lean no lefs than- 
 
 feet and a half. What renders it flill the more 
 remarkable is, that it has continued to project in 
 this manner for many ages paft j nor have we the 
 Jeaft account given us, either from hiftory or tra- 
 dition, how it firft happened* 
 
 the 
 
[ 39 ]' 
 
 the tower of Pifa > but the upper part 
 of the Garifenda is tumbled down, or 
 has been demolilhed, in order to pre- 
 vent its fall. 
 
 It is on the bridge of marble, which 
 I have fpoken of above, that they ex- 
 hibit at Pifa every three years a lingular 
 feftival, of which I was a witnefs. Its 
 origin is loft in the remotenefs of anti- 
 quity % Six hundred and forty cham- 
 pions, divided into two troops, armed 
 with cuiraftes and gilt helmets, difpute 
 with each other the bridge with heavy 
 blows of clubs ; frequently they hurl 
 one another into the river, where there 
 are boats ready to receive and fuccour 
 them : The carnage of the combatants 
 
 * See the Book entitled Oplomacbia Pifana t 
 publilhed in quarto, at Lucca, in 1713. 
 
 ^ fometimes 
 
[ 4° J 
 
 femeiimes renders this fpedtade tragical.- 
 It could only furnilh me with chirur- 
 gical obfervations, which I have not 
 made a part of my colle&ion. 
 
 I returned from Pifa to Florence, 
 where every thing invites a paffenger to^ 
 prolong his flay and where, over- 
 whelmed with the marks of attention 
 and favours of the Corlini family, I 
 occupied the larged: and mod: beautiful 
 palace of the city, in the abfence of 
 its maders, who, ever fince the ponti- 
 ficate of Clement XII. make their or- 
 dinary refidence at Rome. 
 
 On tranfporting to Vienna the cabi- 
 net of natural hidory purchafed by the 
 emperor at Florence, that prince left in 
 this city a prodigious number of vafes, 
 jewels, and works of art, both ancient 
 and modern, compofed of the mod 
 
 valuable 
 
L 4 1 3 
 
 valuable materials and fet in the rich- 
 eft workmanfhip, which made and 
 ftill make a part of the immenfe col- 
 lection of antiquities and curiofities 
 of the gallery of the palace of Medicis, 
 where this kind of curiofities alone 
 takes up feveral very large armories. A 
 defcription of this gallery has been long 
 promifed to the publick. The chapel 
 of St. Laurence, deftined for the fepul- 
 ture of the princes of the houfe of Me- 
 dicis, into which the moft precious 
 marbles are fcarce admitted, includes 
 within its (hell, which is not yet finifti- 
 ed, the richeft and moft magnificent 
 afifemblage of large pieces of jafper, 
 porphyry, lapis luzuli, &c. which are 
 feen only in fmall folitary fragments in 
 the richeft cabinets of Europe. 
 
 We know, that it is with fmall 
 prifms or cubes of thefe hard 
 
 ftoneSj 
 
[ 42 ] 
 
 ftones, artificially fixed in a cement 
 prepared for the purpofe, that the an- 
 cients delineated ornaments of flowers, 
 animals, and even human figures, in 
 colours that are unalterable, which they 
 called Opus teflellatum , or Mujivum ' 
 and we Mofaick *, One of the moil 
 beautiful monuments in this kind, 
 among thofe which are not already 
 publiihed, is a pavement above ground, 
 found at Frafcati, in a houfe belong- 
 ing to the Jefuits, called Rufinella, 
 which, it is pretended, made a part of 
 Cicero’s Tufculum. We fee there a 
 bufl: of Minerva, armed with a cafque 
 and cuirafs, much larger than nature, 
 .ajaid executed in the grandefl: manner. 
 Chymiflry, in giving to glafs colours no 
 
 * See the treatife of M. now Cardinal, Fu- 
 rietti, concerning Mofaicks, publifhed at Rome in 
 quarto, 1752. 
 
 lefs 
 
I 43 3 
 
 lefs durable, oftentimes more lively 
 than thofe of the hard {tones, together 
 with all forts of {hades, has put the 
 artifts of the middle age in a condition 
 to bring this beautiful art to perfec- 
 tion It is at Rome that it is culti- 
 vated with the greateft fuccefs, efpe- 
 cially for upwards of a century part-; 
 owing to the immenfe number of works 
 carried on in the church of St. Peter. 
 All the vaults of it are, or will very 
 
 * In many of the old Mofaieks, we fome- 
 times find, efpecially on the borders, pieces of 
 coloured glafs ; but if we ma/ fuppofe that this 
 is a reparation, lefs ancient than the work, we 
 may at leaft remark that tl.efe pieces have not all 
 the fhades in them which the modern Mofaieks 
 have, and that they only form therein compart- 
 ments of glaring colours. The materials of the 
 antique Mofaieks, which reprefent human figures, 
 or other animals, are of marble, brick, or clouded 
 flints, of various colours* 
 
 Ihortly 
 
c 44 3 
 
 Shortly be, covered with performances 
 of this kind ; the feveral tables of the 
 altars in the chapels will be executed 
 in the fame manner: It is thus that 
 they have found out the means of 
 rendering a portrait as durable as a ila- 
 tue, and of eternifing thofe mailer- 
 pieces of painting, which two or three 
 ages would have fufficed to deilroy. 
 
 They have endeavoured to improve 
 upon the mofaick of the hard ilones, 
 by fubilituting in its ilead a fpecies of 
 pinked or inlaid work of the fame ma- 
 terials. This inlaid work is not com- 
 pofed of fmall prifmatical or cubical 
 pieces, proportioned to each other, fuch 
 as are made ufe of in the common 
 mofaick ; the new incruilation is form- j 
 ed of large unequal pieces, cut as the 
 contour of the objects to be reprefent- 
 ed requires. At fkft they confined- it j 
 
 tO ; 
 
[ 45 ] 
 
 to the reprefentation of flowers and 
 jfruits in their natural colours, fome- 
 times of birds and infedts, delineated 
 by proportionate pieces of agate, jaf- 
 per, lapis luzuli, cornelian, and colour- 
 ed flints. We have in France, in fome 
 of the royal houfes, and in fome great 
 jnoblemens feats, beautiful pictures 
 jmade in this manner in the lafl cen- 
 tury : but in the modern works at Flo- 
 rence, Rome, and Naples, they have 
 attempted to introduce human figures. 
 
 This kind of work has two advan- 
 tages over the mofaick. They fave 
 hereby that great number of joints and 
 angles which are unavoidable in the 
 aflemblage of fmall prifms, of which 
 mofaick is compofed ; but what they 
 ; gain thereby in the corredtnefs of the 
 defign, which the piece traced out fol- 
 lows exa&ly in the contours, and in 
 the beauty of the colours, which is 
 
 not 
 
t 46 ] 
 
 not tarnifhed by the joints, they ioie in 
 the degradation of the tints, which the 
 variety of fhades in the fmall cubes of 
 the mofaick renders much fuperior to 
 thofe in the large pieces. In the more 
 recent pictures, where they have intro 
 duced human figures, this difference is 
 yet more perceptible. A done cut on 
 the very contour of the figure, gives a 
 neater draught, and the defign, viewed 
 near at hand, is more exaCt ; but the 
 fiefhy parts, and the draperies formed 
 by the large pieces expreflive of them, 
 have no deml-tints, and refemble ra- 
 ther inlaid works that are coloured i 
 The pictures' of this kind, even of pure 
 architecture, though feducing at the 
 firft glance of the eye, are not exempt 
 from this defeCt. 
 
 The meridian of St. Petrona’s, traced 
 at Bologna above a century ago, by 
 
 the illuftrious Dominick Caffini, is 
 
 well 
 
C 47 ] 
 
 Well known throughout all Europe: 
 Ibut it is in general very little known, that 
 the greateft of all the monuments in 
 this kind, has exifted for upwards of 
 thefe three centuries pail in the cathe- 
 dral church of Florence, and that Paul 
 Tofcanelli was the author of it. 
 
 During my abode in that city, I ex- 
 amined with father Ximenes thejefuit*, 
 profeflor of mathematicks, and now 
 geographer to his imperial majefty, the 
 feveral parts of this ancient meridian, at 
 that time buried in the mod: profound 
 oblivion f . The great lolidity of the 
 brafs plate, deflined to ferve as a centre 
 jto the dial pin, which is feven lines 
 thick, enchafed and fealed in the cor- 
 toice of the lantern, which crowns the 
 
 * This memoir was read in 1757. 
 
 t Sec page 41, of the hiftorical introduction to 
 the work, cited in the following note. 
 
 dome 
 
[ 4 * ] 
 
 dome, and fapportcd by two flrong 
 brackets alfo of brafs, pierced with the 
 moft careful attention by a conical open- 
 ing en bizeau ; the projecting part of 
 the flone (in which this plate is fixed) 
 being beaten down, and the border of it 
 made hollow, that the whole plate might 
 be always illuminated by- the fun at 
 noonj its height of upwards of two 
 hundred and feventy feven feet, Paris 
 meafure, above the pavement of the 
 church ; the diameter of the hole, which 
 is lefs than the two thoufandth part of 
 its height ; the circular marble fixed 
 in the pavement of the church, in 
 order to receive the projection of 
 the fun’s fhadow in the fummer* 
 folftice ; the obfervation made on this i 
 marble in 1510, attefled by an in-i 
 lcription which is ftill legible : all thefe 
 circumftances denote the capacity and 
 great views of the author of this work.; 
 I regretted that fo beautiful a monument 
 
 of 
 
[ 49 J 
 
 of modern aftronomy, raifed in an age 
 when the arts and fciences had not 
 | yet triumphed over barbarifm, fhould 
 continue in obfcurity, and that it fhould 
 remain without ufe in an age fo enlight- 
 ened as ours. I made thereupon fome 
 reprefentations to the count de Riche- 
 court, prefident of the council of regency 
 of T ufcany. He feemed to me to pay 
 greatattentiontothem. In fhort, I learned 
 | fome little time after, at Rome, that his 
 imperial majefly, being informed by that 
 ' minister of the importance and utility 
 of the meridian in the cathedral of Flo- 
 rence, to the progrefs of aftronomy, had 
 I fignified it as his pleafure that nothing 
 I fhould be wanting to its reftoration. 
 Father Ximenes, being charged with the 
 (execution of the emperor’s orders, has 
 fince rectified with a fcrupulous exadt- 
 jnefs all the parts of the ancient dial; 
 has retraced and repaired the meridional 
 D line, 
 
[ 5° J 
 
 line, has re-eltablifhed its level, has 
 made new folfticial obfervations, and 
 has concluded, in Ihort, by a companion 
 of them with the ancient ones, that thp 
 obliquity of the ecliptick was lefs by I 
 a minute and lixteen feconds in 1 7yj, 
 than in i y io. He gives an account of 
 all his labours in a work in 4to, which 
 is now beneath the prefs*. In 17yd, : 
 I received at Rome a manufcript Iheet 
 from him, containing his firft obferva- 
 tions, which he requeued me to com- 
 municate to the academy: I .fulfilled 
 
 his defire, and the academy have admit- 
 ted him into the number of their cor- 
 refpondents. 
 
 * This work has appeared fince the reading o! 
 this memoir, under the title of Vecchio e nuovi 
 Gnomons Fiorentino , Florence , 1757 . i- e. The ok 
 and new dial of Florence, publifhed in that citj 
 
 in 1757- 
 
 Al 
 
[ ] 
 
 All the dimenfions of the new meri- 
 dian were taken in toifes, feet, inches, 
 and lines of Paris, The French meafure 
 and that of Florence, engraved on brafs, 
 are incrufted in the pavement of the 
 church, exactly under the centre of the 
 dial. They were regulated by the de- 
 mi-toife of iron which I carried into 
 Italy ; and the latter had for its ftandard * 
 
 the 
 
 * I fuppofed at that time, with M. dc-Mairan, 
 (fee Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences, 1735, 
 p. 1 57 ; and 1 747, p. 499 and 500) that the toife was 
 equal to the iron rule which M. Godin, M. Boguer, 
 and myfelf, carried to Peru in 1735, to ferve us 
 in the menfuration of the terreftrial degrees, and 
 of which I left a model with the academy. This 
 model and our toife had been compared and found 
 to be equal in one of our aflemblies. The year 
 following, that is to fay, in 1736, the model de- 
 pofed was carried by M. de Maupeituis and his 
 colleagues into Lapland, where it ferved them in 
 their menfuration of a degree of the meridian, in- 
 i'^ 2 ter- 
 
[ 52 ] 
 
 the toife which M. de Mairan made ufe 
 of in his experiments of the pendulum. 
 
 I left in like manner at Rome the 
 length of the fame toife on the entabla- 
 ture of a ftone balcony in the fa$ade of 
 the palace belonging to the academy of 
 painting, fculpture and architecture in 
 France. The iron toife fent by M. de 
 Mairan to the fathers Maire and Bofco- 
 vick, jefuits, in order to ferve them in 
 their menfuration of a degree in the ec- 
 clehaftical ftate, is exaCtly comprifed 
 (when M. Reaumur’s thermometer points 
 at 1014) between the two vertical faces 
 and parallels of the two notches made 
 
 terfe&ing the polar circle. But the toife of 
 M. de Mairan has-been fince difcovered to be 
 fhorter than ours by about the tenth or twelfth 
 part of a line j fome allowance being made for a 
 more accurate examination. 
 
 by I 
 
[ S3 ] 
 
 by a rule in the cylinders of porphyry 
 fixed in the entablature of that balcony, 
 with a proje&don of half an inch, which 
 forms a ftandard proper for cutting am 
 other rule, whether of wood or metal, 
 of the exadt length of a toife. If we 
 would take the lame meafure with a 
 pair of compafies, inftead of carrying 
 their points on the proje&ing parts of the 
 two notches, which is as difficult as it is 
 inconvenient, we ought to make them 
 correfpond with two very fine parallel 
 lines, traced with a diamond, on the ho- 
 rizontal furface of two porphyry cylin- 
 ders, in the prolongation of the infcribed 
 ray. 
 
 It is only in the prefent century, and 
 even within thefe thirty years, that on 
 account of fome new Experiments re- 
 garding the length of a pendulum for 
 feconds and the new menlurations of 
 D 3 the 
 
[ 54 ] 
 
 the terreflrial degrees, undertaken by this 
 academy, we have perceived the necef- 
 fity of carrying our precifion to the mod; 
 fcrupulous exadtnefs in the making 
 
 cut of infiruments that are intended 
 
 for meafuring, and it is true alfo that it 
 is only in fuch cafes we have need of fo 
 great a precifion. The models of the 
 ancient meafures were divided only into 
 digits, without any leffer fubdivifion. ■ 
 What is this in effedt, but a line more 
 or lefs in a fathom or an ell, deflined to 
 meafure the length of a wall or piece 
 cf fluff. They very much negledl . 
 
 inches in common furveying, andlikewife 
 in mafonry. There would be nothing 
 aflonifhing then at all in it, though there I 
 fhould remain an uncertainty of a line * 
 or more with refpedt to the length of an i 
 ancient meafure, fuch as that of the cubit, ] 
 or of the Greek and Roman foot : the 
 latter is particularly the fubjedl of our 
 prefent enquiry. We have no true ] 
 
 model 
 
[ 55 ] 
 
 model left us of it ; and though we had, 
 could we be certain that the length of 
 the Roman foot was not changed at 
 different times? Were the meafures of 
 the ancients fecure from thofe accidental 
 variations, which the more ufual ones 
 among the moderns, fuch as the toife 
 and ell, are liable to ? They found them- 
 felves under a neceflity of reforming 
 the firft in i6d8, and of fhortening it 
 by five lines. We are ignorant whence 
 this error proceeded ; and what is per- 
 haps ft ill more Angular, we are able to 
 find no other veftige of this reformation 
 of five lines, than a bare mention of the 
 fadt, in the fhort treatife de menfuris of 
 M. Picard, tom. VI. of the ancient me- 
 moirs of the academy *, and a word or 
 two more in the menfuration of a degree 
 by the fame author. All thofe who 
 
 *Page 536, 
 
 D A* have 
 
 
[ 56 ] 
 
 have ever mentioned it fince, have done 
 nothing more than quote this academi- 
 cian. It is true that we faw at Paris, 
 about two years ago, an old ftandard of 
 iron, defective and erroneous, fixed in a 
 ftone pillar, in the angle next to the 
 flair-cafe of the great chatelet, and that 
 we even ftill fee there a ftandard of the 
 new toife, alfo of iron, and fixed in the 
 interior pillar of the arcade, by which 
 we afcend to the faid ftaircafe. It has 
 not yet been ftolen *, as the old one 
 was ; but what would fear ce be believed 
 out of France, no infeription has ever 
 been fet up to tell us either what one or 
 the other is, nor wherefore, or at what 
 time, they were placed there. Befides, 
 that which now remains there, in this 
 refpedt like the old one, which no longer 
 exifts, is fo rudely made, the angles of the 
 
 So faid in 1762. 
 
 t^vo 
 
 w 
 
[ S7 ] 
 
 two ends or points which terminate this 
 ftandard are fo very much worn, whe- 
 ther by the frequent ufe made of it, or the 
 injuries of the air, or any other accident, 
 that two toifes meafured upon this mode], 
 though by the fame perfon, would not 
 be found equal, unlefs it were by very 
 great chance *. Since the reformation 
 made under the infpedtion of M. Picard, 
 whofe name alone is fufficient to make 
 us prefume upon the greateft accuracy, 
 we find he was himfelf miftaken in near 
 fix toifes, with refpedt to the very funda- 
 mental bafis of his labour for the meri- 
 furation of a degree; and his error is a 
 proof that the toife he made ufe of for 
 
 * See the new project of an univerfal meafure, 
 publifhed in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sci- 
 nces, for the year 1747, p. 500. 
 
 D 5 
 
 me a- 
 
meafuring his bafe was too 
 a line *. 
 
 near 
 
 M. de la Hire has found the ell of 
 Paris fo very different among the fe- 
 veral bodies of tradefmen, that fome of 
 them make it, as he fays, four lines 
 Shorter than others f . 
 
 The ell eftablifhed by the edid of 
 ] 557i was fixed at three feet, feven 
 inches, eight lines 5 yet the iron ftand- 
 ard of this meafure, kept lince the year, 
 
 * This error, which was found out in 1740, has 
 beenfince verified in 1757, by the new meafure- 
 ments of the commiflaries of the academy. See 
 the meridian of Pariswerified, fed. I. Art. I. p. 33. 
 and following. Menfuration of three degrees 
 of the meridian, p. 252. and following. Me- 
 moirs of the Academy for 1754, p. 185. 
 
 + Memoirs of the Academy for the year 1714., 
 p. 398. 
 
 
t S9 ] 
 
 1554 in the merchants hall, was but 
 three feet feven inches and near eleven 
 lines of the reformed toife made in 1 668. 
 This point was not cleared up till 1745, 
 on the examination and proof made of 
 it by Meff. Camus and Hellot, of this 
 academy, authorifed by the miniftry *. 
 They moreover found this ftandard very 
 rudely made, and Rill worfe divided, 
 by reafon of its large, unequal and 
 crooked ftrokes, and in fhort too long 
 by more than a third of a line, at the 
 entry of the two projedtions made for 
 embracing fuch meafures as fhould be 
 prefented there for trial. 
 
 After what I have jufb obferved, fhall 
 we be at all furprifed, that amidfl the 
 ancient feet, prefer ved at Rome, there 
 
 * See Memoirs of the Academy for the year 
 1746, page 607, and following. 
 
 D 6 fhould 
 
[ *0 J 
 
 fliould be any found, which differ from 
 each other by more than a line ? It is 
 now near a century agofince Meff.Picard 
 and Auzoutgave in their proportion of a 
 Roman foot to that of Paris, that is to 
 fay, fuch as they concluded it to be ; 
 the one from a comparifon of feveral 
 teftimonies, the other from his own ob- 
 fervations made upon fome antique fculp- 
 tured feet. Since that time they have 
 difcovered at Rome feveral others, as 
 well fculptured as of metal. Thefe are 
 all different from one another, and have 
 been differently rated for three centuries 
 paft by the learned, by curious travel- 
 lers, and by antiquaries. In doing this, 
 the greater part of them employed their 
 own national meafures, the proportions 
 of which to ours are not perfe&ly fettled*. 
 
 * Memoirs of the Academy for 1747, p, 498. 
 
 and 
 
[ 6i ] 
 
 and each of them likewife made ufe of 
 a foot, the authenticity of which has 
 been tried and proved by none of them. 
 On one tide the feveral models differ 
 fometimes a line or more ; on the other, 
 the feveral obfervers agree not fometimes 
 by nearly two or three lines with re- 
 fpedt to the length of the very fame 
 foot*. 
 
 * Ebutius’s foot, according to Fabretti, con- 
 tains 1 33I lines; according to father Reviilas, 
 1 31 2 ; according to the Abbe Barthelemi, and fa- 
 ther Jacquier, in 1 756, 1 30*-, being near three lines 
 lefs than what it is made by Fabretti. The fame 
 gentleman found the feet of Statilius and Coflutius 
 equal; M. de la Hire thinks they vary by near 
 half a line. See the DifTertation of the Academy of 
 Cortona, tom. III. p. 125 ; and Memoirs of the 
 Academy of Sciences, 1714, p. 395 ; and Me- 
 moirs of the Academy of Belles Letters, tom. 
 XXVIII. p. 609. 
 
 I fhould 
 
[ 62 } 
 
 I fhould have as much right as an- 
 other to report here my own particular 
 meafure of the feveral ancient feet that 
 are known, and to draw from thence a 
 new determination of the length of a 
 Roman foot, but that I have not the 
 prefumption to think it at all better 
 than any of the foregoing, and that it 
 would ferve perhaps only to multiply 
 doubts. I thought my time would be 
 better employed if I fhould be able to 
 remove to Paris the originals themfelves, 
 or, in default of them, their models en 
 creux j which I caufed to be made on 
 the four ancient Roman feet, preferved 
 in the Capitol, viz, thofe of Statilius, 
 Coffutius, and Ebutius^ and that which 
 has been fince found near the Villa Cor- 
 fini, and prefented to the cabinet of the 
 Capitol by the marquis Capponi, whofe 
 name it has retained. I fpeak not of 
 thofe portable feet of iron or brafs, which 
 
 ■ruff. 
 
t ] 
 
 rail:, verdigreafe, and even ufe alone may 
 have rendered too fhort. The queftion 
 here is only concerning feet that are 
 found fculptured in bas relief. I took 
 care to let the plafter dry on the ori- 
 ginal reliefs, that the models in dry- 
 ing might preferve, if poflible, their juft 
 length*. I have depofited thefe moulds, 
 fince the reading of this memoir, in the 
 king’s cabinet of medals, under the care 
 of the Abbe Barthelemi. Thus we may 
 for the future at Paris, as well as at 
 Rome, examine and compare thefe four 
 
 * It were to be wiihed that in cafes like this, 
 we could employ for the mould a matter as proper 
 as plafter for receiving the impreflion, but more 
 folid, and capable of acquiring, at leaft for a time, 
 a greater degree of hardnefs. Such a compofition 
 would not be impoflible perhaps to be found, and 
 would merit the refearches of any lover of the arts, 
 more dexterous and fortunate than I can pretend 
 to be. 
 
 5 mea- 
 
f 64 ] 
 
 meafures one with the other, and draw 
 the fame inferences from them, as if we 
 had the very originals, fuch as they now 
 are, before our eyes. That is to fay, 
 on the infpeCtion alone, and ftill more 
 upon the tryal, any perfon may be con- 
 vinced as I am, ift. That the fculp- 
 ture of thefe feet, whether upon ftone *, 
 or upon marble, has never been delicate 
 enough, even before the projecting parts 
 of the relief of the angles were impaired 
 and worn down by age, to have ena- 
 bled us, at any period, to regard thefe 
 monuments as faithful ftandards of the 
 ancient foot: and in faCt, whatever ap- 
 pearance a fculptor, or rather a ftone- 
 cutter, charged to carve in a rough 
 
 * The foot called Ebutius’s, is not carved on 
 marble, but on a ftone called Peperino , which is 
 more porous, and by a great deal lefs fine, than 
 marble. 
 
 man- 
 
C 3 
 
 manner a fepulchral monument may- 
 have pretended, or even been able reli- 
 gioully to give to the juft length of a 
 Roman foot, in the reprefentation of a 
 fymbol, deftined only to point out the 
 profeftion of the architect mentioned in 
 the epitaph ; That 2dly, by the ftrong- 
 eft reafon in the ftate of alteration, in 
 which thefe pretended models of a 
 Roman foot now are, it is not poflible 
 to perceive evidently what has been their 
 primitive length. 3dly, That they are 
 alfo vifibly unequal among themfelves,^ 
 and thus that we cannot by means of 
 them arrive at any more exadl calcu- 
 lation of the Roman foot than is given 
 of that of Paris, when we pretend to 
 determine its length by thofe broken 
 feet of wood which our workmen com - 
 monly make ufe of, and which frequently 
 differ among themfelves by more than 
 half a line : furthermore on Unis fuppo- 
 
 fttion 
 
I 66 
 
 fition can they have more conformity 
 with one another than the feveral an- 
 tique feet in the Capitol, in which the 
 very bizel alone may caufe a much 
 greater difference ? 
 
 If any thing could feem proper to 
 clear up the debate relative to the mea- 
 fures of the ancients, it would be with- 
 out doubt an old plan of a city, many of 
 whofe ancient edifices may ftill exift, 
 or at leaft may be diftinguifhable in 
 their veftiges. In 1573, they found 
 in the ruins of a temple of Romulus, 
 which forms at prefen t the church of 
 St. Comus and St. Damien, at Rome, 
 the fhattered remains of a plan of that 
 city, engraved on marble, about the time 
 of the emperor Septimius Severus. 
 Thefe fragments, which at fir ft were 
 collected with avidity, but afterwards 
 negle&ed, have remained in oblivion for 
 
 near 
 
. C 6-7 3 
 
 near two centuries in the palace of Far- 
 nefe 5 and it is only fince the year 
 1742, that, thanks to the cares of the 
 reigning pope (Benedict XIV.) who 
 begged them of his Sicilian majefty, 
 what remained of them was removed 
 to the Capitol, and divided into twenty - 
 fix tables, which at prefent line the 
 walls of the great flair-cafe. 
 
 At the fight of this monument, to 
 which they have annexed a fcale of 
 brafs, incrufled in the fir ft table of the 
 fragments, and defigned to meafure the 
 diftances of the plan, I conceived great 
 hopes ; and my fir ft care was to try the 
 accuracy of the fcale. The infcription 
 fet upon it in 1742 imports, • that this 
 fcale was drawn from a comparifon of 
 the ancient monuments, at prefent fub- 
 fifting; ^abulm I. adjedia eft compen - 
 diaria pedum antiq. Rom. LXXX. men- 
 
[ ] 
 
 Jura, ex eorumdem fragmentorum colla- 
 tione cum, veteribus adificiis deprompt a : 
 i.e. “ To the fird table is added a com- 
 “ pendious fcale of 80 feet of the ancient 
 “ Roman meafure, drawn from a com- 
 f ‘ parifon of the faid fragments with fome 
 “ old buildings.” However, I found 
 on the fird trials, that this fcale but ill 
 agreed with the true meafure of fuch 
 monuments as are mod: clearly de- 
 fcribed. The author of the infcription, 
 as well as thofe who prefided over the 
 redoration of the fragments, were 
 dead *. After many enquiries, I at 
 lad: found out the perfon *who had 
 made the fcale of the plan. This was 
 the fieur Nolli, author of the bed and 
 larged plan we have of modern Rome, 
 
 * T hefe were the marquis Capponi and father 
 Revillas. 
 
 which 
 
C 69 ] 
 
 which was magnificently engraved in 
 1748. I learned from his own mouth 
 what means he made ufe of for form- 
 ing this fcale ; and I perceived, on a 
 new examination, the little dependence 
 that was to be made on the conjedures 
 by which he had ‘been determined, 
 and convinced him of it. Leaving all 
 other proofs then reft there, it is Suf- 
 ficient to obferve, that the fcale which 
 he has annexed to the plan is equal to 
 fix inches and near two lines of our 
 foot, and that it meafures therein a 
 diftance of eighty ancient feet ; whence 
 it would follow, that the whole plan, 
 of which they have colleded only fome 
 fragments, would be nearly a hundred 
 feet diameter *, Paris meafure, which 
 
 is 
 
 * Rome contains upwards of 3000 paces, or 
 more than 15,000 ancient feet, from the Flami-^ 
 
 man 
 
[ 7 ° ] 
 
 is impofftble, feeing that the total dia- 
 meter of the temple of which this plan 
 formed the pavement, and which I 
 meafured myfelf, is but forty-four feet 
 eight inches. In fhort, the more clofely 
 we examine the mod perfect fragments 
 of this ancient plan (I fay the mofl 
 perfect, for a great number of them 
 having been either loft or difperfed 
 fmce its firft difcovery, have been re- 
 paired after the engraving of Bellori, 
 which comprehends only the lefter 
 part) the more we (hall be convinced, 
 that the inartificialnefs of the execution, 
 and the little exadtnefs of the work. 
 
 nian gate (now called del Pcpolo) to the Porta 
 Capena (at prefent that of St. Sebaftian), and 80 
 feet being 187,! part of 15,000 feet, this diftance 
 of 15,000 feet would have been meafured on 
 the antique plan by a fcale 187 \ long, which 
 anfwers to upwards of 96 feet, Paris meafure. 
 
 renders 
 
t 7 l ] 
 
 renders it abfolutely of no fervice to- 
 wards clearing up the debate relative 
 to the ancient meafures. I fhall not 
 enter into a detail of the different 
 proofs which I might produce on this 
 occafion, and which alone would fur- 
 nifh fu-fficient matter for a memoir ; I 
 fhall only add, that if I had had any 
 doubt left, I fhould have been con- 
 firmed in my opinion by that of the 
 Abbe Barthelemi, whom his own par- 
 ticular refearches, and the new obferv- 
 ations which we made together at 
 Rome, have led to the fame conclu- 
 fions as myfelf. Since my return into 
 France, I have feen that this was alfo 
 the opinion which M. Piranefi delivered 
 with regard to this antique plan, al- 
 moft all the fragments of which he has 
 engraved anew, in that great work of 
 his which he has juft publifhed on the 
 antiquities of the Romans, in four 
 
 large 
 
.[ 7i ] 
 
 large volumes folio *. Nothing can 
 confole us better for the prefen t ruinous 
 flate of this monument, than the little 
 real value it is of, and its unfervice- 
 ablenefs, which has been fo well proved, 
 towards adjufting the meafures of the 
 ancients, even though it were entirely 
 preferved. 
 
 * This antique plan is fo defective in itfelf, 
 that it is of lefs importance to obferve here, that 
 the engravings of Bellori are far from being ex- 
 aft, and that they feem as if made at fight ; the 
 diftances and number of columns in the temples 
 and other edifices, the proportion of the lines, 
 the opening of the angles in them, being fre- 
 quently very little conformable to the original. 
 I muff fay the fame of the engravings of M. Pi- 
 ranefi, which are vifibly copies, and even negli- 
 gently done, of thofe of Bellori ; without doubt, 
 becaufe M. Piranefi judged that the time which 
 it would require to execute them with greater ex- 
 aftnefs would be pure loCs, 
 
 It 
 
f 73 ] 
 
 
 It is very probable, that the funda- 
 mental dimenfions of any large edifice* 
 when they have not been confined by 
 the ground, contain a round, or at 
 leafl an entire number of fmall mea* 
 fures ; that the two axes, for inftance, 
 of the ellipfis of the Colifeum, that 
 the diameter of the Pantheon, that the 
 fa$ade of the baths of Diocletian and 
 Caracalla, have rather an entire than a 
 broken number of Roman feet. This 
 reflection, which naturally prefents it- 
 felf, fuggefted to me a method which 
 appeared to me proper for determining 
 the true length of a Roman foot. With 
 this view I took, as accurately as pofii- 
 ble* fome capital dimenfions of the 
 moft celebrated monuments at prefent 
 exifting in Rome, and I fought which 
 of the meafures attributed to the Ro- 
 man foot, divided the total length with- 
 out any remainder > but this expedient, 
 E which 
 
[ 74 ] 
 
 'which has not even the merit of novel- 
 ty did not fucceed with me ; for 
 when all the inferences I propofed 
 drawing from it were made, I per- 
 ceived that I ought not to expedt any 
 greater preciiion in it, than from the mea- 
 fure of one folitary foot taken feparately. 
 This is what I believe has not been re- 
 marked before ; but be that as it will, 
 the following is a proof of its truth. 
 
 Firft, this method is not exempt 
 from difficulty. I fuppofe, that the 
 interior diameter of the Pantheon, the 
 
 * See M. Picard’s treatife de menfuris , already 
 cited ( Ancient Memoirs of the Academy of Sci- 
 ences ^ tom. vi.) Memoirs of the Academy for 1714, 
 ^.396, &c. I fhall give, however, the refult of 
 my endeavours for this purpofe, at the end of this 
 memoir, and the feveral evaluations of an ancient 
 jEloman foot, which we may draw from them. 
 
 area 
 
t 75 ] 
 
 area of -which is circular, may be a 
 hundred and fifty Roman feet. This 
 it ought to be, according to all appear- 
 ance, from the very firfl firatum of the 
 iiones of the foundation, that this dia- 
 meter may have the faid round num- 
 ber of ancient feet, and not at the fur- 
 face of the ground 3 and yet it is only 
 on tne furface that we can take our 
 adtual meafure. Secondly, fuppofe it 
 be granted, that this length ihould be 
 taken at the furface, yet ought it at 
 leaft to agree with the exterior, rather 
 than the interior diameter of the walls 
 of the temple 3 but it is the latter only 
 that is acceflible 3 the exterior can only 
 be concluded upon by deducting the 
 thicknefs of the walls 3 and this thick- 
 nefs can be meafured only at the gate, 
 where it is by no means the fame as in 
 the reft of the contour. Thirdly, af- 
 fixed by M. Moreau, now architect to 
 E 2 the 
 
[ 7 ^ ] 
 
 the city of Paris, I meafured fcrupu- 
 loufly at Rome, with a chain of iron 
 equally extended on the pavement, four 
 radii of the Pantheon, taken from the 
 centre to the axis of four columns, 
 oppofed to each other, two and two. 
 I proved at Paris thefe meafures, which 
 I had noted down on the fame chain, 
 and marked with a file. I employed 
 in this verification the toife which had 
 been made ufe of in the menfuration 
 of a degree of the meridian beneath the 
 equator, and the afliftance of the Sieur 
 Canivet, a maker of mathematical in- 
 ftruments. The difference between 
 the two radii, taken from North-eaft 
 to South-weft, is near four inches ; but 
 the total diameter is equal nearly within 
 an inch to that which crofted it at 
 right angles ; and one with another 
 they are a hundred and thirty-feven 
 royal feet, and one or two inches. 
 
 The 
 
[ 77 ] 
 
 The celebrated Defgodets has meafured 
 twelve of thefe radii with his ufual ex- 
 adtnefs. Among them are fome that 
 differ feven inches, which would make 
 upwards of half a line difference in a 
 Roman foot. The length of my dia- 
 meter exceeds the medium diameter of 
 this architect by no more than between 
 four and five inches, adding to his three 
 feet five inches for the radius of the 
 two oppofite columns, which is not. 
 comprifed in his meafure. Fourthly, 
 and laftly, and this reafon alone is de~ 
 cifive, the longer meafures have been 
 determined only by the multiplication 
 of the figure of which they are com- 
 pofed ; that is to fay, by the fucceffive 
 application of this figure to the extent 
 of the ground. A long meafure, there- 
 fore, will not yield any greater preci- 
 fion than a fmall one. If the archi- 
 tedt, for inflance, had wanted to give a 
 E 3 diameter 
 
 <6 
 
[ ;8 ] 
 
 diameter of a hundred and fifty Roman 
 feet to thePantheon, he would have mea- 
 fured them with his own foot rule, applied 
 a hundred and fifty times to the ground, 
 or, if you pleafe, with a longer rule, fuch 
 as a fathom, or a toife. Now this mea- 
 fure, whatever it had been, could not 
 have been divided but by a foot 5 and; 
 what proof have we that this foot 
 would have been more exactly cut 
 than the old feet in the Capitol, which 
 differ among one another by more than 
 a line ? An error, therefore, proceed- 
 ing from any little want of accuracy 
 in the architect’s foot, would have been 
 multiplied a hundred and fifty times over 
 in the total length of the diameter of the 
 Pantheon. The fame error might ff ill 
 have been increafed by any bungling 
 operation in the repeated application of 
 this foot, already defective in itfelf ; 
 and we muff not imagine, that errors 
 
 com- 
 
E 79 I 
 
 
 committed by applying any meafure 
 negligently to the ground, will within 
 a little compenfate for each other : 
 That only holds good when they are 
 fornetimes more and fometimes lefs ; 
 but an erroneous manner of proceed- 
 ing, when it is uniform, mud multiply 
 the error of which it is the caufe ^ 
 Thus, for example, the application of 
 a toife upon the ground, when we fet 
 it down or take it up, by laying it al- 
 ternately on its oppofite faces, neceffa- 
 rily makes us count too much to each 
 length of it, by the thicknefs of the 
 rule. 
 
 Thefe reflections are fuflicient to 
 convince us, that we are not to expeCt 
 any greater preciflon or uniformity in 
 the determinations of a Roman foot,- 
 formed upon the geographical menfura- 
 tions of an ancient mile. An evident 
 E 4 proof 
 
t 80 J 
 
 proof alfo, that the toifes of the an- 
 cients have been negligently meafured, 
 with feet neither exadt nor equal among 
 themfelves j and that, in fhort, many 
 errors have crept into them, may be 
 drawn from the unequal diftances of 
 their miliary Hones, which we yet find 
 Handing on feveral old highways, as 
 well in France as Italy, and from the 
 various lengths of a Roman mile, 
 which have been concluded upon from 
 them. But fhall we be aHonifhed at 
 finding a few paces difference in the 
 length of a mile, when we fee feveral 
 inches difference in columns of only 
 three or four feet diameter, in the moH 
 beautiful ancient edifices ? 
 
 As for the method employed by Vil- 
 lapandus, and fome others, for de- 
 ducing the length of a Roman foot 
 from the capacity of the Congius , or 
 
 any 
 
[ 8i 1 
 
 any other hollow meafure, it is flili 
 more fufceptible of error than all the 
 preceding ones, on account of the mul- 
 titude of figures that enter into this de- 
 termination. The conclufions alfo 
 which have been drawn this way, are 
 fuch as carry us flill farther from the 
 medium given by other calculations. 
 
 After all the learned refearches 
 which have been made for three cen- 
 turies pafi on the Roman foot, it ap- 
 pears that the fubjedt is now quite ex- 
 haufted, and that we cannot hope for 
 any thing more than an approximation 
 to it, which leaves at lead: an uncer- 
 tainty of half a line. To fpeak only 
 of the calculations of the moderns, M. 
 d’Anville, in his treatife of itinerary 
 meafures, publifhed in 174.1, after 
 weighing all the teftimonies that had 
 fallen beneath his notice, fixes the Ro- 
 E 5 man 
 
[ 8 > Y 
 
 man foot at io inches, io lines, and T 6 ^, 
 or 130 lines of the Paris foot. Fa- 
 ther Revillas, in a learned differtation 
 on the Roman foot, inferred in the 
 Memoirs of the Academy of Cortona, 
 printed at Rome in 1751 *, taking a 
 medium between the different calcula- 
 tions of an ancient foot, drawn from 
 the feveral feet now fubfifting, as well 
 in marble as in metal, and the geogra- 
 phical meafures, gives it two tenths of a 
 line more than M. d’Anville, or 130 
 lines -1%. M. Freret, in a oofthumous 
 
 Jl 
 
 differtation, printed in 1756", gives the 
 preference to Statilius’s foot which 
 he looks upon as the medium between 
 all the different ancient feet ; and he 
 fuppofes this foot to be 131 lines 
 
 * Tome iii. p. 122. 
 
 f Memoirs of the Academy of Belles-Lettres, 
 tom, xxiv, p 490. 
 
 Father 
 
[ 8 3 ] 
 
 Father Bofcovick, in his menfuration 1 
 of a degree of the meridian, printed at 
 Rome in 1755, adopted the opinion of 
 M. Stuart, in his differtation on the 
 obelifk lately taken up in the field of 
 Mars, and gives to the Roman foot 
 131 lines complete, or 10 inches II 
 lines of our foot. This is the medium 
 between the two foregoing calculations 
 of Father Revillas and M. Freret. The 
 Abbe Batthelemi and Father Jacquier, 
 in 1756, fince my departure from 
 Rome, have meafured the four fculp- 
 . tured feet, and likewife one of metal ; 
 three of which they find equal to 130 
 lines -is, and this is the length they 
 allow to a Roman foot. Hitherto the 
 feveral meafures agree nearly to within 
 half a line, and their medium fcarce 
 varies from the meafure of an ancient 
 foot, which Luca Petto, a celebrated 
 Roman lawyer, caufed to be engraved, 
 E 6 by 
 
[ S 4 ] 
 
 by authority of the government, about 
 thiee centuries ago, on a marble which 
 ispreferved in the Capitol 5 a meafure 
 which may be eftimated at 130 lines 
 But MefT. Hellot and Camus having 
 fixed the ell of Paris * at 43 inches, 10 
 hnes, £, or i., agreeably to the re- 
 feaiches which they made concerning 
 it in 1747, on an old ftandard belong^ 
 mg to the Mercers company, of the 
 year 1774, Biey have found out that 
 the Roman foot, which we have 
 ■ftrong reafons to take for the fourth 
 part of our ell, fhould be 10 inches, 
 
 1 1 lines, T 7 -, or 131 r 7 - h ne s of the 
 Paris foot. Laftly, M. de la Hire, in 
 the memoir already cited, makes the 
 Roman foot ftill longer, and equal to 
 
 * Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences for the 
 year 1746, p. 617. 
 
[ 8 5 ] 
 
 ii of our inches, or 132 lines. We 
 cannot deny but thefe authorities are 
 of very great weight j however, as M. 
 de la Hire reafons only on the meafures 
 taken by others, and his determination 
 differs widely from all the preceding 
 ones, this decifion ought not to carry 
 it over the multitude of contrary tefti- 
 monies. As to the calculation of Meff. 
 Hellot and Camus, it is founded on 
 two fuppofitions, that are very contro- 
 vertible : One that the ftandard of the 
 ell of 155:4, which is inartificially and 
 unequally divided, fhould be a faithful 
 copy of the older ftandard, which had 
 been preferved without variation fince 
 the days of Charlemagne 5 the other, 
 that the ancient Roman foot fhould 
 not have undergone any alteration 
 when this emperor fixed the meafures 
 at the beginning of the ninth century. 
 All thefe things being well conftdered, 
 
 it 
 
[ 86 ] 
 
 It appears that by making the ancient 
 Roman foot to confift of one hundred 
 and thirty-one lines, that is to fay., of ten 
 inches eleven lines of our royal meafure, 
 or perhaps a little lefs, we fhall not be 
 very remote from the truth, and that we 
 fhall retain nearly, within a very little, 
 the medium between the feveral flight 
 variations to which we may fufpedt the 
 Roman foot has been fubjedh 
 
 I have brought from Rome the ac- 
 tual meafure of the two columns of 
 Trajan and Antoninus, as alfo of the 
 fagaae of the Pantheon and fome 
 others, taken with as much preci- 
 flon as if thefe monuments had even 
 been tranfported to Paris. I mean here 
 by the words adtual meafure, a length 
 equal to the thing meafured; leaving it 
 to any one who fhall think proper to 
 take the trouble, to determine the num- 
 ber 
 
[ S; ] 
 
 ; e r of feet and inches contained in this' 
 bngth. The following is the method 
 I obferved in taking it: 
 
 p • ' ' * ■ * '•**$ ~ 
 
 1 I let an iron chain charged with two 
 3i* three pounds weight of lead, in form 
 If a founding plummet, hang down from 
 he platform of the chapiter of the pil- 
 lar, till the lead fo fixed to the chain 
 fefted on the pedefial of the pillar ; then 
 { marked with a Broke of a file the 
 part of the chain which anfwered to the : 
 level of the chapiters the other dimen- 
 fions are in like manner fet down on the 
 chain. By letting it hang at freedom 
 charged with the fame weight, we fhall 
 find the fame length precifely, when the 
 thermometer points to the fame degree, 
 as I obferved it did then at Rome, that 
 Is to fay, eleven degrees beneath the 
 point of congelation. We may tranfi- 
 (fer thefe meafures to a wall, and even 
 
 trace 
 
 
[ 88 ] 
 
 ii3.ce out on it horizontally, and within 
 the reach of the eye, the profiles ofthefd 
 columns with their feveral dimenfions] 
 and of courfe put it in the power of all 
 curious perfons to fatisfy themfelves in 
 taking the height of them, more com- 
 mcdioufly than they could even on the 
 original itfelf. 
 
 The Campagna of Rome, formerly fo 
 well peopled and filled with delightful 
 places, is at prefent defert, and the air 
 there reputed pernicious. We fcarce 
 meet now with a few villages, or ham- 
 lets, in an extent of ground which once 
 contained twenty-five cities or towns ; I 
 fpeak of the country inhabited by the 
 Volfci, of which Velitrae, now Velletrij 
 was the capital. It is the fame with all 
 the environs of Rome i they are unin- 
 habited, efpecially during the hot months, ^ 
 
 except 
 
1 85 > ] 
 
 excepting a few elevated places, fuch as 
 Tivoli, Frafcati, Albano, &c. 
 
 I endeavoured to inform myfelf with 
 refpedf to an opinion fo generally pro- 
 pagated, of the pretended mortal dan- 
 ger of expofing one’s felf to the air of the 
 Campagna of Rome in the hot weather ; 
 and I am convinced that this danger is 
 not greater than that which we run in 
 every other country that is moift and 
 marfhy. What they alledge for the 
 moft part concerning the air of Rome 
 and its environs, is very little more than 
 an old prejudice i very juft indeed in its 
 principles, but which it is time to re- 
 ftrain within its proper bounds, by exa- 
 mining its original and foundation. 
 
 It was after the invafion of the Goths 
 in the fifth and fixth century, that this 
 corruption of the air began to manifefl 
 
 itfelf. 
 
[ 9 ° } 
 
 itfelf. The bed of the Tiber being cover- 
 ed by the accumulated ruins of the edi- 
 fices of ancient Rome, could not but raife 
 itfelf confiderably. But what permits 
 us not to doubt of this fad is, that the 
 ancient and well preferved pavement of 
 the Pantheon and its portico, is over- 
 flowed every winter ; that the water even 
 rifes there fometimes to the height of 
 eight or ten feet ; and that it is not pof- 
 flble to fuppofe that the ancient Romans 
 fhould have built a temple in a place fo 
 low as to be covered with the waters of 
 the Tiber on the leaf! inundation. It is 
 evident then that the level of the bed of 
 this river is raifed feveral feet; which 
 could not have happened without form- 
 ing there a kind of dikes or bars. The 
 choakingup of its canal neceflarily oc- 
 eafloned the overflow and reflux of its 
 waters in fuch places as till then had not 
 been fubjed to inundations ; to thefe 
 
 over- 
 
[ 9 1 1 
 
 overflowings of tine Tiber were adued. 
 ill the waters that efcaped out of the 
 [indent aqueduds, the ruins of which: 
 are ftill to be feen, and which were en- 
 tirely broken and deftroyed by Totila. 
 What need therefore of anything more to 
 infed the air, in a hot climate, than tne 
 exhalations of fuch a mafs of ftagnating 
 Waters, deprived of any difcharge, and 
 become the receptacle of a thoufand 
 impurities, as well as the grave of fe- 
 deral millions both of men and animals? 
 The evil could not but increafe from 
 the fame caufes, while Rome was ex- 
 pofed to the incurflons and devaluations 
 of the Lombards, the Normans, and 
 jthe Saracens, which lafled for feveral 
 centuries. The air was become fo in- 
 fedious there at the beginning of the 
 thirteenth century, that pope Innocent 
 j III. wrote that few people at Rome ar- 
 rived to the age of forty years, and that 
 
 nothing 
 
[ p* ] 
 
 nothing was more uncommon there 
 than to fee a perfon of fixty. A very 
 fhort time after the popes transferred 
 the feat of their refidence to Avienon : 
 during the feventy-two years they re- 
 mained there, Rome became a defert,' 
 the monafteries in it were converted into 
 Rabies; and Gregory XI. on his return 1 
 to Rome, in 1376 , hardly counted there 
 thirty thoufand inhabitants. At his death, 
 began the troubles of the great fchifm 
 in the weft, which continued for up- 
 wards of fifty years. Martin V. in whom 
 this fchifm ended in the year 1429, and 
 his firft fucceftors, were able to make but 
 feeble efforts againft foinveterate an evil. 
 It was not till the beginning of the fix- 
 teenth century that Leo X. under whom 
 Rome began to refume her wonted 
 fplendor, gave himfelf fome trouble 
 about re-eftablifhing thefalubrity of the 
 air; but the city being fhortly after beA 
 
C 93 ] 
 ieged twice fucceffively by the emperor 
 Charles the Fifth, faw itfelf plunged 
 Igain into all its old calamities; and 
 from eighty-five thoufand inhabitants, 
 which it contained under Leo X. it was 
 reduced under Clement VIII. to thirty- 
 two thoufand. In Ihort, it is only fince 
 the time of Pius V. and Sextus V. at the 
 end of the fixteenth century, that the 
 popes have conftantly employed the ne- 
 ceflary methods for purifying the air of 
 Rome and its environs, by procuring 
 proper difcharges for the waters, drying 
 up the humid and marfhy grounds, and 
 covering the banks of the Tiber, and 
 other places reputed uninhabitable, 
 with fuperb edifices. Since that time a 
 perfon may dwell at Rome,* and go in 
 or out of it at all feafons of the year. 
 At the beginning, however, of the pre- 
 fent century, they were ftill afraid to 
 die out of the city in fummer, when 
 5 they 
 
t n ] 
 
 they had refided there ; as they were alfotc 
 return to it, when once they had quitted it 
 They never ventured to deep at Rome 
 even in broad day, in any other houf 
 than their own They are greatly re- 
 laxed at prefent from thefe ancient fern- 
 pies: I havefeen cardinals, in the month 
 of July and Augufl, go from Rome tc 
 lie at Frafcati, Tivoli, Albano, &c. anc 
 return the next or the following days tc 
 the city, without any detriment to theii 
 health : I have myfelf tried all thef< 
 experiments, without differing the leaf 
 inconvenience from them : we hav< 
 
 ^ven feen in the laft war in Italy, tw< 
 armies encamped under the walls o. 
 Rome, at the time when the heats wer$ 
 mod: violent. Yet notwithftanding al 
 
 * They cannot at Rome compel a tenant to dif- 
 lodge in fummer, even on default of payment. 
 
 2 this. 
 
[ 9f ] 
 
 this, the greater part of the country peo- 
 ple dare not dill venture to lie during 
 thatfeafon of the year, nor even as much 
 as deep in a carriage, in any part of the 
 territory comprehended under the name 
 of the Campagna of Rome. 
 
 | 
 
 M. Lancifi and M. Leprotti, phyficians 
 to the popes Clement XI. and XII. as 
 well asM. Lapi*, have drenuoully com- 
 bated, both by reafon and experience, 
 the abufe of this old prejudice, but it is 
 only by infenfible degrees that the truth 
 begins to prevail. It mud alfo be con- 
 fefled that the experiments made for 
 
 * See Joan. Maries Lancifi Dijfertatio , See, 
 or the Diflertation of Joanna Maria Lancifi, con- 
 cerning the natural and adventitious qualities of the 
 Roman climate, publifhed at Rome in 17 n j and 
 the Ragionomento contra la volgare opinione , &c. 
 da Giovani Girolamo Lapi. Romes , 1749 . 
 
 proving 
 
[ ^ ] 
 
 proving an air that is reputed mortal not 
 to be fo, are neceflarily very few, and 
 no lefs foreign from the end propofed. 
 
 I battened to pafs from Rome to Na- 
 ples before the great heats fhould come 
 on : I arrived there too late to be a wit- 
 nefsofthe eruption of Mount Vefuvius. 
 The firtt object then of my curiofity was 
 the fubterranean city of Herculaneum, 
 buried beneath the afhes of that volcano, 
 now for near feventeen centuries, and 
 difeovered at the beginning of the latt, 
 but on which the attention of the publick 
 has not been fixed till within thefe few 
 years. 
 
 The moft valuable beyond doubt of 
 all the monuments which are admired 
 there, is the great number of manuferipts 
 on Egyptian paper, blackened and al- 
 moft calcined, and nearly in the fame 
 
 ftate 
 
{ 97 ] 
 
 ftate as if drawn out of an oven. They 
 have found out, however, the art of 
 unrolling them, and of gluing the 
 leaves on a very thin pellicle ; hap- 
 pily they are written but on one fide. 
 They are now labouring to tranfcribe 
 thefe manufcripts, which it requires 
 only time to do : They will, no doubt, 
 hereafter fucceed fo far as to interpret 
 them j they are all Greek. The cha- 
 racters of thofe I have feen are very di- 
 ftinct ; I have read, without difficulty, 
 many words in them, and even entire 
 lines. 
 
 Next to the manufcripts, the thing 
 
 that truck me mot, was the great 
 
 number and variety of houfehold uten- 
 
 fils and little family moveables, many 
 
 of which refemble ours: And it is ne- 
 
 cetary to remark here, that hardly 
 
 anv but thofe made of metal have 
 * 
 
 F been 
 
[ 9 § ] 
 
 been able to laft fo long. I faw, 
 among other things of this kind, filver 
 difhes emboffed, with their fub-cups, 
 in the form of our coffee-difhes. But 
 thefe things have already afforded mat- 
 ter to abundance of writings ; and an- 
 tiquities are not here my object. I 
 fhall confine myfelf, therefore, to fome 
 reflections on the ftate of certain me- 
 chanical arts among the ancient?, and 
 on their progrefs among us. 
 
 They have found antique drinking- 
 glaffes, feveral of which are of differ- 
 ent forms, together with bottles - 3 which 
 alone would prove, that the ancients 
 knew how to found and blow glafs, 
 and even that they had a fort white 
 enough to make window-panes of. 
 One ftep farther, and they had difcover- 
 ed, as well as we, the method of ren- 
 dering blown -glafs flat, and of making 
 
 it 
 
[ 99 ] 
 
 it into fquares. Nor would they then 
 have remained deftitute of that greatefl 
 of modern conveniences, which we 
 enjoy almoft without perceiving it; viz. 
 of thofe windows and glafs doors, 
 which let in day-light to us, at the 
 fame time that they preferve us from 
 all the injuries of the air ; which exhi- 
 bit to us, even in the interior part of 
 our houfes, the variegated view of na- 
 ture ; and which transform the winds, 
 the frofts, the tempefts, into a magni- 
 ficent moving pi&ure before our eyes. 
 
 The Romans, however, were Rill 
 far from the art of running glafs, and 
 making it into mirrours. TL here was a 
 neceflity firft of bringing the matter 
 and the method of fufing it to fuch 
 perfection -as that it fhould imitate cry- 
 ftal ; then to know how to plane and 
 polifh this purified glafs> before they 
 F 2 could 
 
[ *°° ] 
 
 could think of fixing its tranfparence 
 by a leaf of tin impregnated with mer- 
 cury. It appears, that they had not 
 even the art of tinning metals, though 
 they knew extremely well how to ap- 
 ply gold and filver to them. In fadt, 
 the ftatue and horfe of Marcus Aure- 
 lius at the Capitol were gilt ; a great 
 number of family utenfils (let us dare 
 to call things by their names), the very 
 kitchen furniture found at Hercula- 
 num, is frequently filver, but never 
 tinned over. It is the reverfe with re- 
 fpedt to folders ; we find none among 
 any pieces of antiquity in filver, but 
 only in tin ; and as this kind of folder 
 is weak, we fee nothing more of it 
 than the fluttered remains. 
 
 I muft not forget the lace made of 
 gold wire, found in this fubterraneous 
 citv. It is of pure gold, and wove 
 
 like 
 
X I O I ] 
 
 like cloth. They had not yet fo much 
 as fet themfelves about thinking how 
 to fubflitute in fie ad of a gold thread a 
 thread of filver gilt, which fhould be 
 as beautiful, lighter, and of a price 
 greatly inferior to the other. For a 
 very flrong reafon, they had never 
 taken any thought about fparing again 
 in the materials, without loling any 
 thing in the outward luflre, by making 
 flat the faid thread of filver gilt, and 
 rolling it round a fllken thread. The 
 Romans were very far from forefeeing 
 that the time would come when an 
 ounce of gold would be fuflicient to 
 gild a thread of filver fix leagues in 
 length. 
 
 Among the great number of rings 
 and precious (tones fet in fignets, found 
 at Herculanum, I do not know that 
 they have met with one diamond. Ver-; 
 
 F 3 ft 
 
[ 102 ] 
 
 few are feen that are antique ; without 
 doubt, becaufe they have been retailed 
 upon us by the moderns, as fad as 
 they have difcovered them. If fome 
 paffages of Pliny and Ifidore give us 
 reafon to think that the ancients made 
 ufe of the fragments of the diamond to 
 engrave on hard (tones, and to faihion 
 even the diamond itfelf, it does not ap- 
 pear that they had made any great pro- 
 grefs in the art of bringing the natural 
 facets to perfection, of multiplying, 
 .and of polifhing them with its own 
 proper powder. I have feen no an- 
 tique diamonds that ha„d not their own 
 genuine points, fuch as they come out 
 of the hands of nature, after having 
 had the outward coat taken off. The 
 coloured (tones found at Plerculanum 
 are mounted in gold, but very clumiily. 
 I have feen there fignets of amethyft, 
 and among thefe (tones, one of an 
 
 oblong 
 
[ I0 3 ] 
 
 oblong form, about fifteen lines in length, 
 very Straight, and cut en Goutte de Surf j 
 as alfo emeralds, feveral of which were 
 engraved, fome en creux , others in 
 relief, together with onyxes, corne- 
 lians, &c. 
 
 If we have any fuperiority over the 
 ancients in the practice of certain arts, 
 it is not at lead in that of cutting and 
 fashioning thefe hard Hones. I have 
 feen with admiration little vafes of rock 
 crySlal, the mouth of which is fo nar- 
 row, that the infide could not have 
 been made hollow as it is, without 
 much induftry and patience ; and I 
 doubt whether, with greater advan- 
 tages, our workmen would have fuc- 
 ceeded therein better. There cannot 
 be any art of more antiquity than this. 
 I faw in the cabinet of baron Sfcoch, a 
 celebrated antiquary at Florence, a cor- 
 F 4 nelian 
 
f 104 ] 
 
 nelian fit for fetting in a fignet, on 
 which w r ere engraved the feven heroes 
 of the ancient Theban war, with their 
 names in Greek characters. We know 
 not at prefent any precious ftone that 
 is engraved, of a higher antiquity. It 
 is believed to be of the time of the 
 Trojan war ; but the origin of this art 
 is ftill more ancient. It was common 
 in Egypt before the going out of the 
 Ifraelites, feeing they had among them 
 lapidaries and engravers in fine ftones : 
 We find the proof of this in Exo- 
 dus 
 
 * M And thou fhalt take two onyx-flones, and 
 “ grave on them the names of the children of 
 
 “ Ifrael With the work of an engraver in 
 
 “ ftone, like the engraving! of a figner, {halt 
 « thou engrave, &c.” Exod. chap, xxviii. v. 
 Q. II. 
 
 In 
 
C '°f 1 
 
 In the publick monuments of anti- 
 quity, decency is feldom violated. It 
 is not the fame with thofe defigned for 
 the ufe of private perfons, and the in- 
 terior decoration of their houfes. As 
 the Pagan religion was no reftraint to 
 debauchery, the ornaments of painting, 
 feulplure, moulding, and carving, in 
 the houfehold furniture of the ancients, 
 inftead of that ferioufnefs and gravity 
 which our veneration for antiquity 
 leads us to feek for there, frequently 
 prefent either obfcene obje<fts, or the 
 caprices of a wanton and trifling ima- 
 gination. I happened to be prefent 
 when they brought to the cabinet of 
 antiquities at Portici a tripod of brafs, 
 which had juft been difcovered, and 
 which far exceeded all that had been 
 found there before : It was as remark- 
 able for the beauty of the work, as 
 the impudence of three figures of fatyrs, 
 F £ which 
 
[ ] 
 
 which fupported the feat. I was at 
 that time taken up in confidering a 
 monument of another kind, viz. a 
 little limb of filver, weighing two or 
 three ounces, on which was delineated 
 a dial, or the horary lines ; the num- 
 bers in it, which marked the hours, 
 and the initial letters of the names of 
 the months were diflindly engraved ; 
 the tail of the animal whofe thigh was 
 reprefented in the limb, ferved as a pin 
 to the dial. I had neither permiffion 
 nor opportunity to examine for what 
 latitude this dial was made, which was 
 fo much the more difficult to deter- 
 mine exactly, as the fmallnefs of the 
 ray did not permit any great precilion 
 in the angles. We fhall be the better 
 able to judge of it when all the monu- 
 ments found at Herculanum, which 
 are to be engraved and defcribed, are 
 
 publiffied. 
 
[ I0 7 ] 
 
 publifhed. The draughts for this pur- 
 pofe were very far advanced in 1 755. 
 
 I {hall add very little to the experi- 
 ments made by the Abbe Nollet * on 
 the vapour of the grotto del Cani near 
 Naples. Emboldened by his attempt, 
 I laid my face clofe to the earth, and 
 drew in at different times the vapour, 
 which rifes there in a thick fmoke 
 from fix to feven inches above the fur- 
 face of the ground. A dog thrown 
 into the grotto lofes the ufe of all his 
 fenfes in lefs. than a minute. I felt as 
 it were a fmall fmarting over the eyes 5 
 and, on prefenting my tongue to it, 
 an im preflion fome what piquant, with- 
 out any diftindt favour ; I found alfo 
 
 * See Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences for 
 the year 1752, p. 75, 76. 
 
 F 6 
 
 fome- 
 
L 108 j 
 
 iomcthing ftrong in my throat— I dare 
 not call it acrid, yet it had nearly the 
 lame effedt as when we fnuff up a 
 weak volatile fait ; but I perceived no 
 fmell in it. Finding myfelf at a lofs 
 when I wanted to write down in my 
 journal what effeds I had experienced 
 '.here, 1 returned the next day to the 
 grotto, in order to examine the matter 
 again. I went there even a third time, 
 on the day following, accompanied by 
 lather de la Torre, a religious of the 
 Sommafcenes, and at prefent librarian 
 to his Sardinian majefty. 1 repeated 
 the fame experiments: I drew in the 
 vapour thrice fucceffively, my nofe 
 touching the ground, and felt the fame 
 fenfations as the firil time ; that is to 
 fay, nothing very diftindt as to the 
 odour or tafle • but fomething very pe- 
 netrating and fuffocating. 
 
 M. Reau- 
 
[ io 9 ] 
 
 M. Reaumur’s thermometer, with 
 Spirits of wine, which the fame morn- 
 ing, between fix and feven, had mark- 
 ed eighteen degrees in my apartment at 
 Naples, being laid flat in the bottom 
 of the grotto for half an hour, afcended 
 twelve degrees, and fixed at thirty 
 above congelation, by nine in the morn- 
 ing. This heat, as we fee, is fomewhat 
 lefs than what is fometimes felt at Paris 
 even in the exterior air. The fame in- 
 ftrument afcended to the fortieth de- 
 gree in the hot-houfes near San Ger- 
 mano, where I found by experience 
 that even the pains of rheumatifm were 
 fufpended. Another thermometer of 
 the like graduation, but made with 
 mercury, being expofed in the fame 
 place, exceeded not thirty-nine de- 
 grees. A little farther, the fame in- 
 flrument plunged into the large fhoot 
 of boiling fprings of Pifciarelli, to tho 
 
 North-, 
 
[ I‘° ] 
 
 North-eaft of Solfatara, fcarce reached 
 fixty-nine degrees, fo far was it from 
 exceeding eighty ; which would have 
 been the cafe, if it were true, as is 
 commonly faid, that thefe fprings are 
 hotter than common boiling water. 
 
 There might, without doubt, feme 
 curious refearches be made here by a 
 phylician, who fhould have leifure to 
 examine the bowels of Montenuovo, a 
 fmall mountain about a hundred toifes 
 high, which fiarted up out of the 
 earth in one night in the year ijj8, 
 near Puzzuoli, during the time of the 
 eruptions of Vefuvius. 
 
 The 4th of June 1755, I had the 
 honour of accompanying his ferene 
 highnefs the margrave of Bareith to 
 the fummit of the mountain, and even 
 to the brink of the funnel which had 
 
 formed 
 
[ 111 J 
 
 formed itfelf round the mouth of the 
 volcano fince its lad: explofion. This 
 funnel was opened amidft a heap of 
 cinders, calcined {tones, and fulphur, 
 which {till burned here and there, ting- 
 ing the very fun with its colour, and 
 exhaling through divers crevices. The 
 heat was fo confiderable in fome places,, 
 over which I paffed very quick, that I 
 felt it acrofs the foies of my {hoes : I 
 walked round this rampart of cinders, 
 and having plunged a ftaff, between 
 four and five feet long, into one of 
 the clefts, I drew if ^up again all in a 
 flame. 
 
 I went clofe up to the edge of the 
 crater, in a place where it was mod: 
 acceffible, and which appeared to me 
 to be fteepeft on the infide. There I 
 laid me down on my belly, and dxetch- 
 ed my head forward, in order to exa- 
 mine 
 
[ 112 J 
 
 mine the infide of this gulf, the fmoke 
 of which prevented me from feeing the 
 bottom. At fuch times as the wind 
 difperfed it, I could fee down to the 
 depth of forty toifes or more, and I 
 perceived therein a large arched cavity 
 towards the north-ead of die moun- 
 tain. I caufed great dones to be thrown 
 into this cavity, and counted by my 
 watch twelve feconds before the noife 
 of their rolling ceafed to be heard. At 
 the end of their fall, his highnefs the 
 margrave, and feveral others, thought 
 they heard a noife refembling that 
 which a done makes when it tumbles 
 into a Hough ; and when we cad no- 
 thing in there, they heard a kind of 
 boiling, like the found of agitated 
 waves. 
 
 In afcending the mountain, X had 
 the mortification to fee my portable ba- 
 rometer 
 
[ > J 3 3 
 
 
 rometer break in the hands of my con- 
 ductor, at the very inftant when I was 
 on the point of reaping the fruit of the 
 trouble it had given me by its carriage 
 from Paris. The fhortnefs of my ftay 
 at Naples did not permit me to repair 
 this lofs ; nor to meafure geometrically 
 the height of Vefuvius, which has ne- 
 ver been well determined Father 
 Torre obtained the neceftary permiffion 
 for me to obferve the height of this 
 mountain ; but his friendfhip and ob- 
 ligingnefs could not remove other diffi- 
 culties. This father has juft publifhed 
 a new hiftory of Vefuvius, in which 
 the gentlemen of the faculty will find 
 wherewith to fatisfy their curiofity •f*. 
 
 — 
 
 * I have been allured, that there is no depend- 
 ence to be laid on the account given of it in the 
 Memoirs of the Academy of Naples, 
 f This hiftory has Been tranflated into French. 
 
 The 
 
[ n 4 ] 
 
 i ne eruptions of this volcano have 
 been frequent for many years pafl, and 
 every time that it darts forth its flames, 
 and vomits out its liquid matter, the 
 exterior form of the mountain, as well 
 as its height, receive confiderable alter- 
 ations. 
 
 In going down, I flopped on a riling, 
 ground, in a fmall plain refembling a 
 half-moon, called Atrio di Cavallo , 
 fltuated between the mountain of cin- 
 ders, the ftones caft out of the bofom 
 of the volcano, and a femicircular the- 
 atre of fteep rocks, two hundred feet 
 high, which fortify this little place or 
 valley on the north flde. There I 
 viewed clofely the breathing-holes 
 lately opened in the fldes of the moun- 
 tain, and through which, at the time 
 of its laft eruption, thofe torrents of 
 inflamed matter had efcaped, to which 
 
 they 
 
[ Ilf ] 
 
 they give the name of Lava , and with 
 which all this valley is filled. 
 
 This fingular fpedtacle prefents us 
 with the appearance of metallick waves 
 grown cold, and in a ftate or congela- 
 tion. One may form a flight, but very 
 imperfect idea of it, by fuppofing to 
 ourfelves a lea of thick, and tenacious 
 matter, the waves of which were be- 
 ginning to fubfide. This fea had its 
 ifles ; which are folitary maffes, refem- 
 bling hollow, fpongy rocks, opening 
 into arcades and grottos, fantaftically 
 formed, beneath which the burning li- 
 quid matter has made itfelf magazines 
 or refervoirs, not unlike furnaces. 
 Thefe grottos, with their vaults and 
 pillars, all the pure work of nature, 
 were loaded with fcoria, fufpended 
 around them in the form of fcaladdtes,. 
 irregular clufters of grapes, of ad 
 
 forts 
 
 or 
 
C ] 
 
 forts of colours and fhades. I broke 
 off ieveral of the mod remarkable 
 fragments, which I carried to Naples, 
 from whence they have not yet reached 
 me now in two years time ; thanks to 
 the officious zeal of three different per- 
 fons, who contended for the pleafure 
 of fending them to me *. 
 
 Both in afcending and defcending 
 the mountain, I had all the neceffary 
 time to examine the matter of the lava 
 in its various ftates. I continued this 
 examination in my feveral trips to Por- 
 tici, a bourg fituated at the foot of Ve- 
 fuvius, where the king of the Two 
 
 * They are fince fafely arrived at Marfeilles, 
 together with fome other pieces of natural hiftorv; 
 but no part of them is yet come 'to my funds, not- 
 with (landing all the trouble I have been able to 
 take. 
 
 Sicilies 
 
[ i J 7 ] ~ 
 
 Sicilies has a houfe of pleafure built on 
 the ground which covers the ruins of 
 Herculanum. 
 
 They do not comprehend under the 
 name of lava all the various forts of 
 matter which iflue out of the mouth 
 of the volcano, fuch as the cinders, 
 pumice Hones, fand, gravel, &c. but 
 only thofe which, being reduced by 
 the a&ion of the fire to a Hate of li- 
 quidity, form on cooling folid maffes, 
 in hardnefs furpafling even that of 
 marble. But notwithftanding this re- 
 ftri&ion, it is to be conceived, that 
 there will Hill be found many very dif- 
 ferent fpecies of lava, according to the 
 different degree of fufion in the mixed 
 matter, according as it participates 
 more or lefs of metal, and becomes 
 either more or lefs intimately united 
 with the various kinds of materials of 
 
 which 
 
[ “8 ] 
 
 which it is compoied. I have diftin- 
 guifhed, in particular, three general 
 fpecies, and there are, no doubt, many 
 intermediate ones. The purell: lava 
 looks, when polilhed, like a ftone of 
 a dirty, obfcure grey : It is fleek, hard, 
 weighty, and interfperfed with fmall 
 fragments refembling black marble, 
 having whitilh fpecks ; it feems to con- 
 tain metalline particles ; at the firffc 
 glance of the eye it looks like the fer- 
 pentine-ftone, excepting that the colour 
 of the lava approaches not towards the 
 green ; it receives alfo a pretty line 
 polilh, which is more or lefs lively in 
 its different parts. Tables, Chimney- 
 pieces, and even fnulf-boxes are made 
 of it. I have feen at the court of Na- 
 ples tables of an inch in thicknefs, 
 fome of which were veined and warped 
 like a plank. The coarfeft fort of lava 
 is uneven and rugged, and greatly re- 
 
 fembles 
 
f lI 9 ] 
 
 fembles the fcoria of a forge, or the 
 drofs of iron. The more common 
 lava preferves a medium between thefe 
 two extremes. It is this fort that we 
 i fee diffuled in large mafles on the tides 
 of mount Vefuvius, and in the adjacent 
 fields. There it has run in torrents, 
 and formed, on cooling, mafies like 
 | rocks, of a ferrugineous and rufty co- 
 lour, and oftentimes many feet in 
 depth. Thefe mafies are broken, and 
 fometimes covered over with heaps of 
 calcined matter, fhot forth out of the 
 bowels of the volcano, and which fall 
 again in the form of rain. The falts 
 they contain mingling with the dried 
 leaves of the trees, vines, and other 
 plants, with which the mountain is co- 
 vered, and with the dung which they 
 carry there, form in time, and fre- 
 quently in the interval between one 
 eruption and another, a new bed of 
 3 earth. 
 
 I - 
 
[ 120 ] 
 
 earth, extremely fertile, which another 
 ftratum of lava covers again in its tarn. 
 
 It is beneath feveral of thefe alternate 
 beds of lava, cinders, and earth, all 
 which put together form a cruft of be- 
 tween fixty and eighty feet thick, that 
 they have found temples, porticos, fta- 
 tues, a theatre, and even an -entire 
 city. 
 
 I never was acquainted with the 
 matter of the lava in America, though 
 we frequently encamped for weeks, 
 and even whole months, on the volca- 
 nos there, and particularly on thofe of 
 Pitchincha, Coto-paxi, and Chimbo- 
 ra5o. I faw on thofe mountains only 
 the veftiges of the calcination, without \ 
 the liquefaction. However, the kind j 
 of cryftal vulgarly called in Peru Pie- \ 
 dra de Gallina$o> feveral pieces of 
 which I brought along with me, andi 
 
 a polilhed . 
 
t I»« ] 
 
 a polifhed lens of which, about feven 
 or eight inches in diameter, may be 
 feen in the cabinet in the kings garden, 
 is nothing elfe but a fpecies of glafs, 
 formed in thefe volcanos. The matter 
 of the torrent of fire which runs down 
 continually from that of Sangai', in the 
 province of Macas, to the South-eafl of 
 Quito, is, without doubt, a lava •, but 
 we faw this mountain only at a di- 
 itance, and I was not at Quito at the 
 time of the lafi eruptions of the vol- 
 cano of Coto-paxi, when a kind of 
 fufpiracles * opened on the fides of the 
 mountain, from whence was feen to 
 ifTue in waves an inflamed and liquid 
 matter, which mull be of the like na- 
 ture with the lava of Vefuvius. 
 
 [ - . Q • •; ■ 
 
 ^ * See the Hiftorical Journal of a Voyage to the 
 Equator, printed at the Louvre in 1751,%. | 5 6, 
 and following. 
 
 G 
 
 It 
 
[ '22 ] 
 
 It is weil known, that Naples is 
 paved with this lava ; but it is fur- 
 prifing that nobody has yet remarked 
 that the pavement of Rome is alfo 
 compofed of the fame materials. I 
 may fay as much of the pavement of 
 the greater part of the ancient Roman 
 highways, and perhaps of all thofe of 
 which any veftiges are remaining from 
 Rome to Naples, as well as on the 
 road from Naples to Puzzuoli and 
 Cumea. In fhort, it is the fame with 
 the Appian way, which dill fubhfts, 
 and makes a part of the high road 
 from Rome to Naples. This antique 
 pavement is entirely compofed of lava. 
 
 We fhall be lefs furprifed at this, * 
 when we come to know that the foun- 
 dations of the houfes in the fubterra- 
 nean city of Herculanum, built now 
 two thoufand years ago, are pure lava, j 
 
 This | 
 
[ «23 ] 
 
 This is fufficient to determine a queflion 
 difcuffed in the Academy of Belles- 
 Lettres, and proves evidently that the 
 great eruptions of Vefuvius are not all 
 of them poflerior to that which fwal- 
 lowed up the city of Herculanum. 
 But though this city is, in fadt, buried 
 under feveral flrata of lava, properly fo 
 called, yet we mud: not imagine that 
 its ftreets, its fquares, and its build- 
 ings, are covered with lava : Were this 
 the cafe, neither the pick-axe nor chifel 
 would be able to penetrate there. The 
 matter with which the interior parts-of 
 the city are filled, has never been either 
 fufed or liquid. It is only one im~ 
 menfe mafs of cinders, earth, gravel, 
 fand, coal, pumice-ftones, and other 
 materials, launched forth through the 
 mouth of the volcano at the time of its 
 explofion, and fallen again in heaps in 
 all the circumjacent parts. Thefe at 
 G 2 firfl 
 
I I2 4 [ 
 
 firft buried all the houfes j by degrees 
 they penetrated into the interior parts, 
 as well by their own proper weight, as 
 by the afiiftance of the wind and rains, 
 and laftly, by the roofs and timbers 
 giving way. This mixture being united 
 by the infiltration of the waters, has 
 condenfed in procefs of time, and form- 
 ed a kind of fand-ftone, more or Ids 
 hard, but every where eafy to be dug 
 through. Such is alfo the foil of the 
 heights which command Naples to the 
 North and to the Weft; viz. thofe of 
 Capo di Monte, the caftle of St. Hele- 
 na, and the Charter-houfe, but more 
 particularly the fteep hill which we fee 
 on the fea-fhore, as we go out of the 
 city to the Weft. Such again is the 
 foil of the eminence into which is dug 
 that famous fubterranean antiquity, 
 above half a mile long, known under 
 the name of Paufilyppo’s grotto. 
 
 All 
 
f 125- ] 
 
 All the mountains and hillocks in 
 the environs of Naples will vilibly ap- 
 pear on an examination to be nothing 
 more than a mafs of various forts of 
 matter, vomited forth by volcanos, 
 which no longer exift, and whofe 
 eruptions, anterior to hiilory, have 
 probably formed the ports of Naples 
 and Puzzuoli. But it is not in Naples, 
 only, and its neighbourhood, that I 
 have found the like kinds of matter. 
 My eyes being accuflomed to diftin- 
 guifh the different emanations of Vefu- 
 vius, and efpecially the lava, under all 
 its various appearances, difcovered it, 
 beyond room for doubt, on the whole 
 road from Naples to Rome, and even 
 at the very gates of the latter, fome- 
 times pure, fometimes mixed, and 
 combined with other materials. 
 
 G 3 
 
 All 
 
[ i^ 6 ] 
 
 All the interior part of the mountain 
 of Frafcati, on which Food Cicero’s Tuf- 
 culum, the chain of hills extending from 
 Frafcati to Grotta- Ferrata, Caftel Gan- 
 dolfoj and as far as the lake of Albano, 
 a great part of the mountain of Tivoli, 
 together with thofe ofCaorarola, Viterbo 
 &c. are compofed of feveral beds of cal- 
 cined ftones, pure cinders, fcorias, gravel a 
 and materials refembling drofs of iron, 
 baked earth, and lava, properly fo called; 
 in fhort all like thofe of which the foil 
 of Portici is compofed, and thofe which 
 iffue out of the Tides of Vefuvius, under 
 fo many different forms. One may 
 diftinguifh by the eye all thefe feveral 
 fubftances : the cinders may be dis- 
 
 covered both by their colour and tafte. 
 It is impoffible for any one, who ex- 
 amines with attention the productions 
 of Vefuvius, not to obferve a per fect re- 
 femblance between them and thofe which 
 
 we 
 
[ 12 7 ] 
 
 we meet, every flep we take, on the road, 
 from Naples to Rome, and from Rome 
 to Viterbo, Loretto,' &c. It follows then 
 neceflarily, that all this part of Italy has 
 been overturned by volcanos. Thefe 
 plains which at prefent appear fmiHng 
 and fertile, covered with olive-trees, 
 mulberry-trees, and vineyards, as are alfo 
 to this very day even the fides of Vefuvius, 
 have formerly been, like them, over-run 
 with burning waves, and like thffnbear, 
 not only in their bowels, but even on 
 their furface,the veftiges of thole torrents 
 of fire, the billows of which are at pre- 
 fent grown cold again and condenfed ; 
 irrefiftible teflimonies of vafl conflagra- 
 tions anterior to all hiftorical monu- 
 ments. 
 
 I pretend not to revive the fyflem of 
 Lazzaro Moro, a Venetian author, whofe 
 work (printed at Venice in 1740) I was 
 G 4 not 
 
[ 128 ] 
 
 net fo much as acquainted with, when 
 1 made the tour of Naples. He afferts 
 that all iflands and mountains wherein 
 are found marine bodies, and of courfe 
 the continents which ferve as bales to 
 thefe mountains, have all fprung out of 
 the bofom of the deep, by the efforts of 
 fuhterranean tires. Hiftory furnifhes 
 him with proofs for a pretty confiderable 
 number : the reft he concludes by in- 
 duction. His aiTertion, the truth of 
 which I am unwilling to deny, is too 
 general to be completely proved : I con- 
 fine my own to fimple faCts, and draw 
 from thence only the neceffary confe- 
 quences. When I fee in an elevated 
 plain a circular bafon furrounded with 
 calcined rocks, the verdure with which 
 the neighbouring fields are covered im- 
 pofes not on me; I inftantly perceive 
 there the ruins of an ancient volcano, as 
 I fhould perceive beneath the fnow itfelf 
 
 the 
 
[ T *9 ] 
 
 the traces of an extinguilhed fire, on 
 feeing a heap of cinders or coal. It 
 there be a breach in this circle, I ufually 
 find out by following the declivity of the 
 ground, the traces of a rivulet, or the 
 bed of a torrent, which feems as it were 
 hollowed in the rock ; and this rock 
 when examined clofely, appears fre- 
 quently to be nothing more than lava, 
 properly fo called. If the circumfe- 
 rence of the bafon has no breach, the 
 rain and fpring waters which aflemble 
 there, and have no iflue, generally form 
 a lake in the very mouth of the vol- 
 cano. 
 
 The reprefentation alone, on a topo- 
 graphical chart, of the lake of Albano* 
 with its fteep fides and circle roughened 
 with rocks, called to my remembrance 
 the lake of Quilotoa, which I have elfe- 
 G 5 where 
 
I * 3 ° ] 
 
 wheie defcribed % and whofe waters 
 fometimes exhale fumes of fire. A few 
 days aftci , the fight of the lake of Albano 
 itlcl f, and the calcined matter with which 
 ito banks ai e powdered, left me no room 
 Uydoubt any longer of its origin. I faw 
 manifeftly the profound funnel of the 
 fhartof an ancient volcano, in the mouth 
 of which the waters had accumulated 
 themfelves. Its eruption, of which hif- 
 tory makes no mention, muff have been 
 anterior to the foundation of Rome, and 
 even of Alba, from whence this lake 
 has taken its name, a period amounting 
 to near three thoufand years. 
 
 At the fight of the traces of fire dif- 
 fufcd in the environs of the lakes of Bor- 
 
 * Hiftorical. Journal of a Voyage to the Equa- 
 tor, p,ge 6 i. 
 
 fello. 
 
[ r p 1 
 
 felloj Ronfiglione, and Bracciano, on the 
 road from Rome to Florence, I had 
 formed the fame conjectures, before I 
 had feen either Vefuvius or the matter 
 which it vomits forth. I pafs the fame 
 judgment by analogy on the lake of Peru- 
 gio, and feveral others in the interior parts 
 of Italy, which I know only by the 
 map. 
 
 In fhort I look upon the Apennine 
 as a chain of volcanos, like that of the 
 Cordilleras of Peru and Chili, which runs 
 from north to fouth, the whole length 
 of South America, from the province of 
 Quito to the Terra Magellanica. The 
 courfe of the volcanos of the Cordilleras 
 is interrupted: a great number of them 
 are either extinguifhed or fmothered; 
 but feveral Till remain actually burning. 
 The old ones alfo frequently revive, and 
 fome times new ones are kindled even in 
 G 6 the 
 
C ] 
 
 the bottom of the fea 5 nor are their ef- 
 fects, on that account, lefs fatal. In a 
 few years time both Lima and Quito, 
 two capital cities of Peru, became the 
 vidfims of thefe two kinds of volcanos. 
 The chain of thofeof theApenoine, which 
 divides the continent of Italy, in like 
 manner from north tofouth, and extends 
 as far as Sicily, prefents us dill with a 
 pietty gieat number or vifible fires under 
 different forms ; in Tufcany, the exha- 
 lations of Firenzuola and the warm 
 baths of Pifa; in the Ecclefiaftical State, 
 thofe of Viterbo, Norcia, Nocera, &c. 
 in the kingdom of Naples, thofe of If. 
 chia, Soifaterra, and Vefuviusj in Sicily, 
 and the neighbouring ifles, jEtna o r 
 Mount Gibe), with the volcanos of Li- 
 pari, Stromboli, &c. But other volca- 
 nos of the fame chain being either ex— 
 tindt or exhaufied from time imme- 
 moiial, have left only fome remains 
 
 behind 
 
[ 133 J 
 
 behind ; which although they may not 
 always ffrike at the firft fight, are not at 
 all lefs diffinguifhable to attentive eyes. 
 In Ihort the earthquakes which have at 
 various times overturned feveral of the 
 cities of Italy and Sicily, that which 
 fwallowed up the city of St. Euphemia 
 in 1638, and of which Kirkerhas drawn 
 fo pathetick a picture, that which defiroy- 
 ed Catano in 165)3, that which opened 
 the gulfs of Palermo in 1 7 1 8, that which 
 fince the reading of this memoir has 
 overturned Syracufe, recall to my re- 
 membrance the difafters of Valparaifo, 
 Callao, Lima, and Quito, in South Ame- 
 rica, and clofe the parallel between the 
 Cordilleras of Italy and thofe of Peru: 
 the marks of refemblance between 
 them are but too finking. 
 
 I affirm not that all thefe mountains 
 are in the fame ffate with the Apennines. 
 
 I have 
 
t *34 J 
 
 I have not obferved the fame appearances 
 in that part of the Alps which I traverfed j 
 but I have found fome fimilar ones in 
 Dauphine, Provence, and feveral places 
 where they have never yet been regarded 
 as proceeding from the adtion of fire 
 It is not then in Italy alone that we find 
 vefligesof calcination and vitrification in 
 places where volcanos have never been 
 fufpedted. The fame may be faid of 
 
 * In 176c, three years after the reading of 
 this memoir, I brought from Balaruc, a village of 
 Languedoc, fituated on the fea fhore, and cele- 
 brated for its warm waters, fragments of a porous 
 {lone, calcined like a pumice, but hard, b'ackiih 
 and weighty, and in all refpedls refembling the 
 coarfeft fort of lava, or rather thofe flones which 
 floated in the lava while yet liquid, which are im- 
 pregnated with it, and fornetimes confounded with 
 the lava itfelf. 
 
 France, 
 
[ *35" • i 
 
 x • 
 
 France, and perhaps of every other 
 country. My conjectures on the ancient 
 volcanos of Italy, the traces of which I 
 faw every where, and the lava, which 
 I found beneath my feet, in places where 
 it had never been fufpeCted, feemed to 
 me fo evident, that all my aftoniffiment 
 was, that they fhould appear new ; ne- 
 verthelefs they were thought whimfical, 
 not to fay ridiculous, in a country where 
 I am dill of opinion, that in order to 
 form the like, it is fufficient merely to 
 open one’s eyes. I learn, that they will 
 probably be better received in France : 
 it will require no difficulty to believe 
 that a great part of Italy is covered with 
 the Shattered remains of ancient vol- 
 canos that are unknown to us, and with 
 lava, properly fo called, in all refpeds 
 like that of Vefuvius, feeing that M. 
 Guettard, whofe memoir, publiffied in 
 
 my 
 
t ‘3* ] 
 
 my abfence*, I was entirely ignorant 
 of, has difcovered a perfect refemblance 
 between this matter and thofe which he 
 has found in Auvergne, on a compa- 
 nion made by him of the fragments of 
 the lavas of Vefuvius and Mount Gibel, 
 which had been fent from Italy, and the 
 different lavas which he has difcovered 
 on the mountain ofVolwick, on the 
 Puy de Domme, and on the Golden 
 Mountain. 
 
 I learn ftill farther that they build at 
 Clermont, in the fame province, with a 
 porous and yet very hard ftone, which I 
 fufpedt to be of the fame nature with 
 the hone of Tivoli ( Lapis lib art inns) 
 now Travertino, ufed in the raoft an- 
 
 * Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences for 
 1752, printed in 1756. 
 
 dent 
 
[ >37 ] 
 
 cient edifices of Rome, fuch as the pri- 
 son of the Tullianum, built under Tul- 
 lus Hoftilius. This Hone bears marks 
 of the adtion of fire upon it, and is a 
 kind of coarfe and porous fragment, 
 feemingly impregnated with a mixture 
 of heterogeneous matter. In another 
 Hone very common at Rome, and which 
 they call there Peferino , we lee incor- 
 porated pieces of white marble, refem- 
 bling that which we frequently find 
 whole veins of on the mountain of Vefu- 
 vius, and in the clefts of the rock bor- 
 dering on the little plain in the Half 
 Moon, which I have already mentioned : 
 one may diftinguifh alfo in the fame 
 Hone, which may pofilbly be nothing 
 more than a lefs pure fort of lava, frag- 
 ments refembling black marble. In the 
 JaH eruptions of Vefuvius, pumice and 
 other Hones half burnt, have been feen 
 floating on the furface of the burning 
 
 and 
 
[ i?8 ] 
 
 and liquid lava. It muff often come to 
 pafs that Hones plunged and retained by 
 fome obHacle within the liquefied mafs, 
 are penetrated to all intents by the va- 
 rious fufed materials of which the lava 
 is compofed. I have brought home a 
 coal, which I drew out of the cavities of 
 a Hone, in thecaftle of Cifta-Caftellana, 
 one day’s journey from Rome. To what 
 other caufe can we more naturally at- 
 tribute the interior difpofition of certain 
 rocks, fuch as are feen in divers places 
 on the coaft of Genoa, particularly to. 
 the north of Cape Mela ? The rock there 
 is cut as it were with a pick-axe, and 
 its vertical fedtion difcovers all the infide: 
 we fee in it a jumble of feveral matters 
 differently coloured, which are not dif- 
 pofedin flrata, but wavey, and in the form 
 pf eddies, whofe afpedt alone recalls to 
 our minds the idea of forne kind of mar- 
 ble papers, and feems as if thefe materials 
 
 had 
 
1 [ * 35 > 3 
 
 had been furprifed and fixed in their 
 ftate of bullition. What is then that 
 fpecies of fand or duft found in the en- 
 virons of Puzzuoli, which is commonly 
 called Puzzuolaneum, and great quantities 
 whereof are found in many other places 
 where it is not known, but an amalgama 
 of calcined hones mingled with fcorias 
 and iron ruil reduced to powder ? I am 
 alfo very much tempted to believe, that 
 the black and metallick duft, fo com- 
 mon in America, and on which M.Mufl- 
 chenbroek made feveral experiments 
 is a production of volcanos. 
 
 * M. MufFchenbroek, in his diflertation on the 
 loadftone, informs us, that the fand, on which he 
 tried his experiments, came from Virginia. I found 
 it in all parts of Peru, and it is very common in 
 the province of Quito. 
 
 But 
 
[ * 4 ° 3 
 
 But however the cafe be with refpeCt 
 to thefe laft conjectures, they have no- 
 thing in common with what I advance 
 on the fubjeCt of the pavement of Rome, 
 the Appian way, &c. I repeat it, that 
 in order to perceive the fame matter there 
 as the lava of Vefuvius, it needs only 
 eyes: as forthofe which require autho- 
 rities to fupport them, I fhall cite Wag- 
 ner, a learned natural!#, and phyfician 
 to her royal highnefs the margravine of 
 Bareith, whom I found of the fame opi- 
 nion with myfelf, when I communicated 
 to him my thoughts on the materials of 
 the pavement of the Roman highways 
 in the environs of Naples and Rome. 
 He added to me, that in three different 
 journeys from that capital to Florence, 
 he had obferved from the mountain of 
 Radicofani, thofe feveral fpecies of cal- 
 cined matter, which I myfelf had begun 
 to obferve, only from the environs of 
 
 Aqua- 
 
[ * 4 « ] 
 
 Aqua-pendente, and the refemblance of 
 which to the lava of Vefuvius I was not 
 yet acquainted with. Another fuffrage 
 no lefs decilive in a fimilar cafe, is that 
 ofM. Soufflot, comptroller of the king’s 
 buildings. Since the reading of this 
 memoir at the publick recital, I have 
 learned from him, that in his laft tour 
 to Italy in 175- 2, he went to Capo-di- 
 Bove, half a league’s diftance from 
 Rome, out of the quarry at which place 
 the pavement of that city is drawn ; 
 and that he perceived that this pretended 
 ftone differed not at all from the lava, 
 with which the ffreets of Naples are 
 paved. The fame material might be 
 drawn from a place much nearer to 
 Rome than Capo-di-i 3 ove ; for I myfelf 
 have feen pure lava as we go out of the 
 city, and that too very near the gate of 
 St. Sebaftian, on the road from Fraf- 
 jcati to Rome. It is aitoniffling that a 
 
 fad: 
 
[ 14* 1 
 
 fad fo eafy to be verefied, fhould ftill, 
 efpecially at this time of day, have 
 the air of a paradox, and not be more 
 generally known. 
 
 The prince of San-Severo, gentleman 
 of the bed chamber to his Sicilian ma- 
 jefty, knight of the ordei of St. Janu- 
 arius, and celebrated for his knowledge 
 in various branches of literature, as 
 well as for his tafte in chemiftry and 
 the arts, furnifhed me with a light at 
 Naples of fome attempts towards a new 
 fpecies of a very fhort vegetable lilk, 
 which they had not been able till then 
 to fucceed fo far in as to.fpin. They ex- 
 trad it from a tree which grows in the 
 country, the leaves whereof differ very 
 little from thofe of the Sallow-tree, 
 and which by botanifts is called Apo- 
 cynum , or Dogs-bane. This filk very 
 much refembles that which is drawn 
 
 6 from 
 
C 143 ] 
 
 from a large tree in America, called 
 Fromager (or the cheefe tree) in our 
 ifles, and Seyba by the Portuguefe of 
 Para. They make no manner of ufe 
 of it in the French colonies: but I faw 
 it employed at Para, in the making of 
 feather beds. The prince of San-Severo 
 has given me fome patterns of this filk 
 thread, and likewife of the fluff which 
 he had caufed to be made of it. It is 
 of the colour of fire, and looks like a 
 waled, watered tabby, that is very thick : 
 It takes no liiftre, but by paffing under 
 the calandar. 
 
 Naples had a few years ago an aca- 
 demy of fciences, a volume of whofe la- 
 bours has even been publifhed. The 
 zeal of a few individuals save birth to 
 
 o 
 
 it; but it fubfifted not long, for want of 
 proper regulations and protection. They 
 talked in 1755 of forming a hiffory, 
 
 under 
 
[ H4 ] 
 
 under the authority of the government, 
 for defcribing and explaining the anti- 
 quities of Herculanum : And we have 
 fince feen appear two volumes in folio, 
 containing explanations of thefe monu- 
 ments, publifhed by the faid fociety. 
 
 Travellers ufually choofe to make 
 the tour of Naples at the time of the 
 feaft of St. Januarius, when they are 
 defirous of being made eye-witneffes of 
 a fadt as extraordinary as it is true ; 
 and which is held in that country for 
 fupernatural. They expofe then, on 
 the principal altar of the cathedral, the 
 head of St. januarius, bifhop of Na- 
 ples. They place near this relique a 
 phial of cry dal, let in a very rich 
 mounting, and which, according to 
 tradition, contains the blood of St. Ja- 
 il uarius. This phial is fhook for fome 
 time, and ordinarily, after feveral 
 
 fhakings, 
 
[ *4J 3 
 
 fliakings, the matter contained in it 
 appears to liquefy before the eyes of all 
 prefent ; I fay ordinarily, becaufe it 
 does not happen fo always, and at fuch 
 times the people of Naples are thrown 
 into the greateft confternation. I la- 
 mented that I had quitted Naples with- 
 out having been prefent at this folem- 
 nity, when chance, in fome meafure, 
 made me amends for it. Being gone 
 one evening to pay my court to her 
 royal highnefs the margravine of Ba- 
 reith, a phial was brought to that 
 princefs, fet in a circle of brafs or fil- 
 ver gilt, and mounted on a pedeftal 
 very richly ornamented, which was 
 furmounted again with a caduceus, in 
 order to diftinguifh the mounting of 
 this from that of the phial kept in the 
 cathedral. All this apparatus was put 
 in the hands of the princefs, from 
 whence it palfed into thofe of the m ar- 
 il grave. 
 
t H<> ] 
 
 grave, and feveral other perfons, as 
 well as into mine; and the following is 
 a true account of what we all faw. 
 The phial appeared to be half filled 
 with a gray-coloured fixed mafs o 
 pafte, and its fides tarnifhed with duft. 
 On inclining it alternately feveral ways, 
 and fhaking it for about half a minute, 
 more or lefs, the pafte became liquid, 
 and melted 5 fometimes only partially; 
 at other times it grew fixed again, and 
 on fhaking it anew it was either a 
 fnorter or longer time in liquefying. 
 All this was done before our eyes ; and 
 what is ftill more deferving of notice, 
 in fuch a manner that neither the wiil 
 nor defire of the perfon who {hook the 
 phial could promote or produce either 
 the one or the other at his difcretion. 
 This is what I have been an eye-wit- 
 nefs to on feveral occafions, not only 
 the evening I mentioned, in prefence 
 
[ *4 7 ] 
 
 of their highnefles, but hnce more 
 particularly, and in broad day, at the 
 keeper’s of the machine, where I had 
 all the neceftary time to examine it. I 
 obferved beneath the phial two fmall 
 cones, I know not of what material, 
 with their points oppofed to each other, 
 which he informed me were perforated 
 with a fmall opening. He further 
 added, that they were hollow, and that 
 *.ne lower cone was moveable, in fuch 
 a manner that its orifice fometimes met 
 with that of the upper cone, and at 
 other times did not j all this was purely 
 accidental, and juft as the motion im- 
 prefied on the phial caufed, or not, the 
 axes of the two cones to concur. As 
 for the dull which I faw in the phail, 
 they told me it was an amaJgama of 
 mercury, lead, tin, and bifmuth j that 
 the bifmuth, which mingles but very 
 imperfectly with the other ingredients, 
 
 2 preven ted 
 
[ i+8 ] 
 
 prevented the mixture from becoming 
 an abfolute fixed pafte, and gave it the 
 form of a powder too thick to pafs 
 through the little opening which com- 
 municated with the two cones. Laftly, 
 they added, that in a circular channel, 
 concealed in the mounting, was con- 
 tained fome running quickfilver; that 
 by fhaking the phial irregularly, when 
 the orifices of the two cones met, this 
 mercury infinuated itfelf in a greater 
 or lefs quantity, and liquefied the 
 amalgama ; that it came to pafs fome- 
 times, that by the variety of motions 
 imprefled on the machine, the mer- 
 cury, fo introduced, returned again by 
 the fame opening, and that then the 
 amalgama ceafed to be fluid. I relate 
 with all poflible exadtnefs what the 
 pofleflbr of this ingenious machine told 
 me, and which I alfo fet down in 
 writing the fame day : All that I can 
 
 certify 
 
[ H9 3 
 
 certify for fad: is, that it performed its 
 operations extremely well. He pro- 
 mifed me at that time an exad de- 
 fcription of it, together with a draught 
 of all its parts, to be communicated to 
 the Academy. He has iince renewed 
 the fame promife to me in writing, but 
 has not yet fulfilled it *. 
 
 At 
 
 * This memoir, read in the Academy in' 17 57, 
 was not printed till 1762. 
 
 Mr. Addifon calls this whole affair of the li- 
 quefying of the blood of St. Januarius one of the 
 moft bungling tricks he ever faw. Mr. Addifon’s 
 word would have gone as far as any man’s j yet 
 I muft confefs, for my own part, that I have 
 never read the fliort account he gives of it, but 
 I have always wifhed, that he had fhewn us 
 wherein it was bungling. M. de la Condamine, 
 with that happy curiofity for which he is fo re- 
 markably diftinguifhed, has here - explained the 
 whole juggle, upon fuch mechanical principles, 
 as, though they entirely deflroy the credit of the 
 H 3 miracle. 
 
[ 15 ° 3 
 
 At my return from Naples to Rome, 
 Cardinal Valenti, minifter and fecretary 
 of flate to his Holinefs, did me the ho- 
 nour of putting into my hands fix co- 
 pies of a new Italian tranflation, done 
 and printed at Rome by his order 
 (though it bears the name of Lucca 
 in the frontifpiece) of my memoir on 
 
 miracle, yet, at the fame time, prove the means 
 by which this wonderful feat is effe&ed to be 
 very ingenious. On this occafion, one cannot 
 but admire the candour of the writer, who, 
 though no doubt a violent Papift, yet is fo far 
 from being bigotted to any peculiar mode of 
 thinking, that we owe to him the detection of 
 one of the greatefl impofitions of the church of 
 Rome. The reader muft not be offended, if I 
 go one ftep farther, and charge Mr. Addifon, on 
 the other hand, with an over-weening zeal againft 
 the Roman Catholick religion, in calling that 
 trick bungling, which it is plain, even from his 
 own account of the matter, he knew nothing at 
 all of. 
 
 the 
 
[ If 1 ] 
 
 the inoculation of the fmall-pox, read 
 the year before at Paris in a publick 
 aflembly of this Academy, In the 
 converfation which I had on this fub- 
 je£t with his eminence, he gave me to 
 underftand, that no theological fcru- 
 ples, ill underftood, would be oppofed 
 at Rome to the eftablifhment of a 
 practice which tends to the good of 
 mankind. The divines with whom 
 the cardinal-minifter had conferred on 
 this head, had taken care to inform 
 themfelves of the true Rate of the 
 queflion, that no alarm might be taken 
 at any falfe reprefentation of it 5 and 
 they delivered it as their opinion, that 
 it was perfectly conformable to the 
 principles of Chriftian charity, to anni- 
 hilate, or at lead; almoft to annihilate, 
 that evident rilk of death, which every 
 infant that comes into the world is ex- 
 PI 4 pofed 
 
[ ] 
 
 pofed to during the whole courfe of his 
 life. 
 
 I learned at the fame time, that the 
 maternal tendernefs which in other 
 places retards the progrefs of inocula- 
 tion, had been an incitement to the 
 mothers in fome parts of the Eccleli- 
 afcical State. The mothers there, with- 
 out waiting for the hand of the chi- 
 rurgeon, inoculated their children them- 
 felves, while they were afleep, and 
 even without the knowledge of their 
 fathers, by a limple puncture. Never 
 did operation fucceed more happily. 
 The Journal des S9avans of Rome has 
 given us an account of it, in their 
 number for July 1755 *• The fame 
 year inoculation was introduced into 
 
 * Giornale di’ Litterati. Luglio, 1755. 
 
 Tufcany, 
 
[ 1 S 3 ] 
 
 Tufcany, by authority of the govern- 
 ment, in the hofpital at Sienna; and in 
 the autumn of 1756 into that of Flo- 
 rence. It has a&ually eftablifhed itfelf 
 at Pifa. Dodtor Targioni has juft pub- 
 liftied at Florence a relation of his fuc- 
 cefs. This method gains ground, and 
 becomes more exteniive every day. 
 From Geneva it has paffed over into 
 Swifterland and Germany, where the 
 moft eminent phyficians have declared 
 in its favour 1 *. Holland, . Denmark, 
 and Sweden, have alfo adopted it. I 
 mention not England, as there it. has 
 not one fingle opponent among the 
 
 * M. Vanfwieten wrote me word in January 
 (1757) that • he intended to perform feveral ino- 
 culations the fpring following. See M. Haller’-s 
 letter to M. Tiflot, entitled, “ Inoculation ju-- 
 “ ftifted.” Alfo a manufcript letter • from M* 
 Wherloffi to M. de la Virotte. 
 
 H jj ©hi* 
 
[ ] 
 
 chirurgeons and phyficians. Behold ns 
 then on all fides inverted by inocula- 
 tion. The Spaniards are the only 
 neighbouring people among whom it 
 has not yet found means to infinuate 
 itfelf. So far we are obliged to them, 
 in that we have not been the lart na- 
 tion in Europe to adopt fo falutary a 
 practice : But, in the mean time, that 
 the whole nation may reap the fruit of 
 it, we have illuftrious examples before 
 our eyes j one fingle inrtance of which 
 proves more in favour of this method 
 than a thoufand others, which have 
 only for their principle a fervile and 
 mechanical imitation. Our divines 
 would be alhamed to afk ferioully, if 
 it be permitted in confcience to make 
 
 * The inoculation of his Grace the duke of 
 
 hartres and Madam de Montpeniier, his lifter, 
 w 1755. 
 
 ufe 
 
[ r 55 ] 
 
 ufe of a precaution, the effeCt of which, 
 as confirmed by new and daily experi- 
 ments, is to fcreen annually feveral 
 thoufands of victims from the fmall- 
 pox, when taken in the natural way. 
 Our bifhops and our magiftrates know 
 not, that it was an anonymous perfon 
 who firfi: impeached inoculation at their 
 tribunal ; but they are not ignorant, 
 that M. Chais * had beforehand re- 
 plied in a victorious manner to all the 
 moral and theological objections that 
 had been made to it, dictated by a zeal 
 more ardent than illuminated 5 and that 
 Father Berti, an Augufiine, and one of 
 the mod learned divines in Florence, 
 together with feveral other Catholick 
 doCtors in Italy, have publicly under- 
 
 *' Apologetica’l Eflay on Inoculation, by M. 
 Chais, printed for De Hond at the Hague, in 
 5:754, and told by M. Briaflon at Paris. 
 
 H 6 
 
 taken 
 
[ if6 ] 
 
 taken the defence of the fmall-pox in the 
 artificial way. There remains then no 
 longer either reafon or pretext for alarm- 
 ing the conferences of thofe, who forget- 
 
 in g tIle evidence, are determined only by 
 authority. 
 
 With regard to the phyficians who 
 have openly avowed their writings againft 
 inoculation, though their names, their 
 number, and the general tenour of their 
 works maybe calculated to impofeupon 
 ns, yet I fhall not inlift the lefs ftrenu- 
 oufiy, that the bufinefs of a phylician, in 
 point of inoculation, is only to examine, 
 whether the : particular habits of the 
 perfon who prefeqts himfelf. do not rem- 
 der him unfit to reap the benefit of his 
 operation, for this purpofe the phy- 
 fician the molt fkilful and experienced, 
 ought undoubtedly to be confulted in 
 preference to all others. But as to the 
 , ' ' ge- 
 
[ >57 ] 
 
 general quedion, “ whether inoculation 
 “ be a falutary practice ?” or even the 
 other quedion, “ whether it be ad- 
 u vifeable to inoculate infants ?” the 
 decifion of thefe turns upon nothing 
 more than a pure calculation of pro- 
 babilities. The problem being reduced 
 to- this compafs, becomes of that kind 
 of operations which is common to lot- 
 teries, and belongs only to arithmetick, 
 inafmuch as to refolve it, we need 
 only cad our eyes on the lids of per- 
 fons inoculated in the fmall pox hof- 
 pitals, and that for foundlings at London. 
 With refpe<5t to the calculation of the 
 rifk by inoculation to adults of different 
 ages, the problem there becomes more 
 complicated, and the mod fubtile ana- 
 lyfis is notable yet to determine it but by 
 approximation; on account of the im- 
 pel- 
 
[ ] 
 
 perfed Hate of the bills of mortality, 
 efpecially in France*: but it is not the 
 lefs evident on that account, that inocu- 
 lation would preferve to the Hate a great 
 number of fubjeds who perifh by the 
 fmallpoxin the natural way; nor is it 
 lefs true, though lefs evident, that from 
 its being advantageous to the Hate, it 
 neceffarily follows that Providence dic- 
 tates the ufe of it to individuals, unlefs 
 
 * In the bills of mortality publifhed in France, 
 they infert the number of the dead, without dif- 
 tinguifhing their ages and difeafes. In thofe of 
 London, which are much more perfed than ours, 
 we fee on one fide how many perfons die at each 
 feparate age, and on the other, how many die of 
 every diforder; but both thefe matters are not 
 united again in one point of view, and we fee 
 not in what proportion the mortality occafioned 
 by any particular diforder, fuch for example as the 
 fmall pox, diffufes itfelf over perfons of different 
 ages. 
 
 it 
 
[ i)5> I 
 
 it be in extraordinary cafes. Inocu- 
 lation henceforward will have for its 
 enemies only thofe who are not able to 
 attain to this truth, demonftrated as it is j 
 or fuch as, being convinced in them- 
 felves, yet have certain reafons to con- 
 tend with, which they are afraid to 
 bring to light * ** 
 
 My 
 
 * The whimfical but ingenious do&or Douglas, 
 in his account of the Britifh fettlements in Ame- 
 rica, vol. II. page 398, &c. gives us the follow- 
 ing ftate of the fmall pox inBofton, from January 
 1752, to July 24,. from whence the proportion 
 between thofe who die in the natural and artifi- 
 cial way may in fome meafure be determined, viz. 
 
 Small-pox in the natural way, 5059 whites, 
 485 blacks, whereof died 452 whites, 62 blacks. 
 By inoculation 1970 whites, 139 blacks, whereof 
 died 24 whites, 7 blacks. Thus there died of 
 inoculation 31 perfons, not including the dubious 
 deaths of Mr. Coleman’s fon, who died by fubfe- 
 quent nervous diforders and fore eyes, and the two 
 daughters of Mr. Goldthwait, who died under 
 
 ino- 
 
[ 1 *> ] 
 
 My abode at Rome being prolonged, 
 and my health re-eftablilhed there, I 
 
 pro- 
 
 inoculation, but, as it is faid, by the fore throat' 
 illnefs. Died then of an inoculated fmall-pox, 
 about one in eighty-two whites, and one in twenty 
 blacks. In the Bofton fmall-pox of 1752, there 
 died whites in the natural way aboutone ineleven ; 
 by inoculation one in eighty : blacks in the na- 
 tural way, one in eight j . by inoculation one in 
 twenty. In Charles-town, South-Carolina, when 
 the fmall-pox prevailed in 1738, upon a ferutiny, 
 it was found that in the natural way, of 647 
 whites, died 157, which is one in four; by ino- 
 culation of 156 whites, died nine, that is to f3y, , 
 one in twenty : of 1024 blacks in the natural 
 way, .there died 138, which is one in feven. and a 
 half; and of 251 .blacks by inoculation, there died ■ 
 feven, or one in. thirty-fix. In the natural way 
 1721, died about one in feven ; 1730, about one. 
 in eight; 1752, nearly one in eleven ; 1721, Mf. . 
 Bond, a carpenter, and five of his children, died . i 
 with purples and haemorrhages in Bofton ; 1752, i 
 tour children of Mr, Wier of Charles- town died, 
 
 whereof t 
 
a 
 
 [ 161 J 
 
 procured a clock from Paris, with 
 metal pendulum, whofe vibrations lafled 
 
 for 
 
 whereof one was inoculated ; 1752, of the fmall- 
 pox decumbents in Bofton, died about one in 
 eleven; 1713, Timonius from Conftantinople 
 fent to the royal fociety in London incredible re- 
 commendations of this practice : il that for the 
 « preceding eight years fome thoufands had been 
 « inoculated, and none died ; while at the fame 
 « time half of the affe&ed in the common way 
 “ died in Conftantinople ; and, what is valued by 
 “ the fair, inoculation never leaves pits or fears: 
 “ children have no convulfions.” Pytarini, the 
 Venetian conful at Conftantinople, in 1714) 
 to the royal fociety a more modeft account of the 
 fame. Dr. Le Due, a native of Conftantinople, 
 and who was himfelf inoculated, allured Dr. Jurin, 
 that out of many thoufands, in the fpace of about 
 forty years paft, who had been inoculated in and 
 about Conftantinople, by one Greek woman, not 
 fo much as one perfon had mifearried. 17 21 ’ ^ 
 lent (fays Dr. Douglas) thefe communications to 
 Dr. Cotton Mather, a clergyman of Bofton ; 
 
 being 
 
[ 1^2 ] 
 
 for twenty-four hours, and the very 
 fame with which I had made my ex- 
 periments 
 
 being very credulous, be fet a rafh operator to 
 work, and about 286 were inoculated, whereof 
 about one in forty-eight died in Bofton. 
 
 In the fpring of 1722, by direction of the prin- 
 cefj of Wales, fix hofpital children, and foon after 
 five more hofpital children, from about fourteen 
 weeks to twenty years of age were inoculated j 
 fome did not receive the infection, as having had it 
 formerly, or from fome other impediments, but 
 none died or fuffered much. Upon this encou- 
 ragement, Mr. Amyand, ferjeant furgeon, was 
 ordered to engraft the fmall-pox on princels 
 Amelia, aged eleven, and princefs Carolina, about 
 nine : they had them favourably. This encouraged 
 the pra&ice; and from the accounts of Dr. Jurin, 
 fecretary to the royal fociety (a great promoter of 
 inoculation) in the fxrft three years, 1721, 1722, 
 and 1723, of the pra&ice, in all Great- Britain 
 were inoculated 477 perfons, whereof nine are fuf- 
 pedled to have died ; and as of thefe twenty- nine 
 did not receive the infe&ion (this is one in fixteen) 
 
 the 
 
[ ] 
 
 periments at Quito, at Para, at Cayenne, 
 
 and at Paris. Father Bofcovick the je- 
 
 fuit 
 
 the deaths were nine in 448, or two P er cen ^* ’ n 
 this period of three years. In making of medium 
 eftimates, we ought to take large numbers in along 
 feries of time, but not the cafes of lingular fami- 
 lies, where fome may fay that notorious ci^rcum- 
 ftances were not avoided or attended to, fuch as 
 pregnant women, -child-bed women, old negros, 
 and the like. We had a remarkable inftance in the 
 inoculations of Bofton 1752, of five perfons in one 
 family, Mr. Sherburn’s, inoculated by Mr. G — r, 
 three died. Of 72 or 73 perfons inoculated in 1721 
 in Roxbury and the adjacent country towns, by 
 Mr. B— n, five died, which is about one in four- 
 teen. In fhort the rifle feems to be only two to 
 three per cent, and by the purging method, and 
 fome prudential cautions, might be farther reduced. 
 In the Bofton inoculations, upon an adlual furvey , 
 it was found that in about 2000 inoculations, 
 thirty-one had died, (others including fome dis- 
 puted cafes, fay thirty- four) the promoters gave 
 out 3500 inoculated, but gradually reduced the 
 
 number 
 
E ^4 ] 
 
 fuit, a celebrated geometrician, one of 
 thofe who meafured two degrees of the 
 meridian of Rome at Rimini, procured 
 me all poffible conveniences for repeat- 
 ing my experiments on the pendulum 
 in the Roman college, where he had 
 traced out a meridian. Thefe were 
 made and continued again more under 
 his infpe&ion than mine for nine days 
 together, at different intervals. The 
 refult was, that in the month of October 
 1 7 55, my pendulum performed at Rome 
 $t886 yi vibrations in twenty-four hours 
 middle time, Reaumur’s thermometer 
 pointing then at feventeen degrees above 
 congelation. This number being com- 
 pared with that of the ofcillations of the 
 fame pendulum at Paris, at Quito, at 
 
 number to 3000, and afterwards to 2500, (fee the 
 Bofton Gazettes, publiihed in June 1752) and at 
 iaft acquiefced in the a£tual Scrutiny of about 
 2109. 
 
 €a.» 
 
C i <*5 ] 
 
 Cayenne, at Para, in the fame fpace of 
 time, will give the difference of the 
 length of a pendulum for feconds, in all 
 thefe places with the greateft precifion, 
 by reducing them all to the fame degree 
 of the thermometer. I went alfo feveral 
 times to the college of Englifh jefuits 
 •there, and to the obfervatory of father 
 Maire (father Bofcovick’s colleague in 
 his menfuration of the degrees) in order 
 to obferve at thefe places the immerfions 
 of Jupiter's fatellites on the occultation 
 of the ftars by the moon. The clouds 
 rendered our preparations ufelefs. Aftro- 
 nomers alone know with how many 
 ineffectual obfervations one that fuc- 
 ceeds is purchafed. I refer ve for another 
 opportunity my experiments on the 
 thermometer, the barometer, and the 
 declination of the magnetick needle, as 
 well at Rome as in divers other places 
 in the courfe of my tour. 
 
 Charles 
 
[ i6<5 ] 
 
 Charles VIII. at his return from his 
 expedition to Naples in 14 pj, founded 
 a convent of French minims to the tri- 
 nity of the Mount, in one of the moll 
 beautiful fituations in Rome. The 
 clock belonging to this convent is a great 
 confolation to ftrangers, being the only 
 one in the city by which you can learn 
 what hour it is. 
 
 The ecclefiaftical day beginning at 
 midnight throughout the whole chri- 
 ftian world, and all the rites of the 
 Roman church being regulated by it, 
 it is fomewhat extraordinary that the 
 civil day fhould not commence at Rome 
 with the ecclefiaftical, and that Italy 
 alone, with a remarkable Angularity, 
 fhould differ in a point of fuch com- 
 mon practice from all the reft of Eu- 
 rope. They begin counting the hours 
 in Italy from the end of the day, a time 
 
 3 equi- 
 
[ l6 7 3 
 
 equivocal, arbitrary, and morally im- 
 poffible to be determined. This cuHom 
 favours vifibly of barbarifm, and recalls 
 to our minds the time when fome fenfe- 
 lefs perfons thought they had fettled the 
 limits of day and night extremely well, 
 by ordaining that the day fhould be 
 looked upon as ended when they ceafed 
 to diftinguifh objedts. But what ob- 
 jects ? at what diflance ? in what feafon ? 
 and under what temperature of the air ? 
 Problems which require as many folia- 
 tions as there are different objedts, dif- 
 ferent diftances, eyes differently formed, 
 and different changes in the air. 
 
 From hence it comes to pafs that at 
 Rome, and almoft throughout all Italy, 
 they count every day at noon one hour 
 different from the evening before $ and 
 that noon-tide, which they neverthelefs 
 Hand in need of knowing exadtly on 
 
 ac- 
 
[ 1*8 ] 
 
 account of their ecclefiaftical rites, varies 
 more than three hours from winter to 
 fummer. At Rome, in the folftice of 
 June, at the hour of noon, the clock 
 ftrikes fixteen ; but in the winter folftice, 
 in December, nineteen. As the length 
 of the day, efpecially when taken from 
 the twilight of the evening before to 
 that of the next day, differs from one 
 day to another feveral minutes ; in or- 
 der to avoid meddling every day with 
 their clocks, they have conceived that 
 they ought to wait till the differences fo 
 accumulated, from day to day, fhould 
 amount to about fifteen minutes : and 
 that they may adt conformably to this 
 regulation, all the clocks of the city 
 make a fkip of a quarter of an hour on 
 a day appointed, fometimes at the end 
 of eight days fometimes at the end of 
 fifteen, and fometimes after an interval 
 of fix weeks. For this purpofe a printed 
 
 al- 
 
[ 169 ] 
 
 almanack informs us, that from the 
 1 6th of February, for inftance, to the 
 24th, it will be noon at a quarter paft 
 eighteen, but that on the 24th it will 
 be noon at eighteen o’clock precifely, 
 and continue fo till the 6th of March,* 
 &c. That from the iff of June to the 
 13th of July, the hour of noon is 
 to be reckoned at fixteen o’clock; 
 on the 13 th of July at fixteen and a 
 quarter, and fo on through the red: of 
 the months; infomuch that in the 
 fpace of a whole year, the time of noon 
 varies from fifteen to eighteen, and that 
 not by an infenfible progreffion from one 
 day to another, but by fkipping a quarter 
 of an hour between a fixed day and the 
 day after, at the end of eight, or fifteen, 
 and fometimes after an uniform march 
 of forty days. I have long confidered 
 with myfelf what advantage can pofiibly 
 
[ i.7° 1 
 
 refult to them from fo whimfical a cuftom $ 
 and the only one I have ever been able 
 to conceive is, that it is very difficult 
 at Rome to perceive when a watch goes 
 wrong. 
 
 We may fee that this cuftom is not 
 only founded on a grofs ignorance of 
 the elements of aftronomy ; but that it 
 is alfo embarraffing in the practice. 
 Such, however, is the tyranny of cuf- 
 tom, that in the country of Galileo, of 
 Kirker, ofRiccioli, of Caffini, very few 
 perfons will allow that this is the leaffc 
 inconvenience. The moft celebrated 
 mathematicians of Rome, and among 
 them the fathers Lefeur and Jacc|uier, 
 French Minims, well known for their 
 learned commentary on Newton, as 
 alfo the fathers Maire and Bofcovick, 
 jefuits, have been confulted with the 
 view of knowing whether it would be 
 
 proper 
 
[ l 7 l ] 
 
 proper to reform this cuftom. It is 
 eafy to imagine what was their anfwer. 
 The abufe, neverthelefs, ft ill fubftfts, 
 and will fubfift probably for yet a long 
 while to come. 
 
 The emperor in his Tufcan territories, 
 and the infant duke of Parma in his, 
 have cut within thefe few years this 
 Gordian knot, by ordaining that the hours 
 there fhould be reckoned conformably to 
 the cuftom univerfally received through- 
 out the reft of Europe. It is not without 
 difficulty that thefe princes make them- 
 felves obeyed, and the murmurings on 
 account thereof ftill continue. What 
 adds to the averfton of the vulgar, a 
 name which extends very wide, is, that 
 they have, very unfortunately for the 
 truth, taken it into their heads to call 
 iuch of their clocks a la Fran^oije, as 
 maik the hour of the day by beginning 
 l 2 it 
 
[ 172 ] 
 
 it at midnight and at noon. This title 
 of their being French clocks is by no 
 means calculated to ferve as a recom- 
 mendation to them. Befides, they find 
 it fo eafy and fo natural to count the 
 hours from the end of the fenfible day ; 
 fo ftrange and fo troublefome to divide 
 the night and the day in the middle, and 
 to regulate the hours by the teims of 
 midnight and of noon, of which there is 
 nothing to informthe fenfes, that without 
 the aid of authority the old cuftomhad 
 never been changed. It is in the con- 
 vents of the nuns in particulai, that the 
 agronomical method has found it diffi- 
 cult to introduce itfelf. By the ancient 
 method of computation the hours of all 
 the exercifes of the cloifler were differ- 
 ent every day, or rather went under 
 different names, though in fadt they 
 were the fame. *1 hey went, we will 
 fuppofe. to matines always at fix hours 
 
 after 
 
[ J73 3 
 
 after midnight; but this was ten in one 
 feafon of the year, and thirteen hours in 
 another. The hour of dinner, which 
 was fifteen in fummer, and nineteen in 
 winter, took fuccefiively the name of 
 all the intermediate hours, and yet every 
 thing went on well. At prefent, by 
 counting only from midnight, the nuns 
 enter the choir all the year round at 
 fix in the morning ; and the clock or 
 their refedtory finking daily at noon, 
 every thing appears to them in diforder 
 and confufion. 
 
 Rome, as well as the greatefi part of 
 the cities of Italy, has feveral literary 
 focieties, which go under the name of 
 academies. Thefe fometimes hold pub- 
 lic afiemblies, wherein many pieces in 
 verfe are read, particularly fonnets, a 
 kind of poetry, the tafie for which has 
 fupported itfelf in Italy with the fame 
 I 3 vi- 
 
[ »7 + ] 
 
 vivacity for upwards of thefe three cen- 
 turies pail. I afhfted on the feventh of 
 Auguft 1755, at anaffembly of acade- 
 micians called Quirini, who held their 
 meeting in a grove of the gardens 
 belonging to the palace of Corfini, one 
 of the mod beautiful in Rome. 
 
 A verdant portico opening into ar- 
 cades, and fupported by rows of trees 
 cut into columns, with their bafes and 
 chapiters, formed a large circle round 
 an odtagon bafon. This rural periftyle 
 was ornamented with fteps, and the 
 circumference of the bafon with feats, 
 for the numerous audience. In the 
 bottom an amphitheatre Rill more or- 
 namented arofe, which ferved as a throne 
 to the members. Fronting this, and 
 right before the bafon, eighteen very 
 rich chairs of date, placed all in a femi- 
 circle, were occupied by the cardinals 
 
 and 
 
[ >75 1 
 
 and ambaffadors. This fight, for which 
 I was not at all prepared, ftruck me 
 greatly. I thought myfelf transported 
 into Elis, in the happy days of Greece, 
 and that I faw the judges there diftri- 
 buting crowns to the vi&ors in the Olym- 
 pick games. 
 
 The Roman academy for fculpture 
 and painting has juft been enriched with 
 fome new donations by the liberality of 
 the fovereign pontiff; and very lately 
 alfo with a fchool for defigning and 
 modelling, fupported like that in the 
 French academy, eftablifhed by Lewis 
 XIV. and which maintains itfelf ftill in 
 its full luftre. 
 
 But it is furprifing not to find in this 
 capital any fociety for thecultivation of 
 phyfics and the mathematics: Rome 
 has no academy of fciences. It is even 
 I 4 but 
 
f ] 
 
 but a few years fince private affemblies 
 have been held (fome of which have anti- 
 quities for their ohjedt) in a city where 
 the mod; beautiful monuments of the 
 magnificence of the ancient Romans 
 continually attract the attention. To 
 this very hour there are neither funds 
 nor penfions attached to thefe eftablifh- 
 ments, which might render them folid, 
 by affuring the lot of thofe who coral 
 pofe them. Thus we may Rill fay, 
 with refpedl to thofe fciences which are 
 termed accurate, as well as with regard 
 to the historical refearches, that Rome 
 wants a centre and point of re-union. 
 
 The Learned and Antiquarians there 
 are difperfed and divided. There are 
 iome, however, particularly in this latter 
 clafs, who have rendered themfelves 
 famous by their works. We are be- 
 come acquainted with the pames of 
 
 Bottarb 
 
C »77 I 
 
 Bottari, Pacciaudi, Bayardi, Bianchini. 
 Vettori, Venuti, and feveral others; 
 but many of them young fellows with- 
 out fortune, who perceiving in them- 
 felves a tafie and talents for the ftudy 
 of ancient monuments, are obliged m 
 order to raife a fmall revenue out of it, 
 to devote themfelves to the fuperficial 
 inftru&ion of travellers, and therefore 
 want the neceffary leifure for rehgning 
 themfelves up to fludies which are too 
 often very unfruitful: Being thus made 
 jealous of each other, left deftitute of 
 every motive of a noble emulation, and 
 lefs attentive to acquire new knowledge, 
 than to fupplant one another, it is fel- 
 dom that they make any conhderable • 
 progrefs, and the greater part of them 
 remain in a flate of mediocrity. 
 
 Can it be believed that throughout 
 all Italy, where the fmalleft towns have 
 
 I 5 a li- 
 
[ ] 
 
 a literary academical fociety, which em- 
 ploys itfelf in the ftudy of eloquence 
 and poetry, there is but one Angle aca- 
 demy of antiquities *, and one of fci- 
 ences ? Both the one and the other too 
 owe their birth to the zeal of two 
 individuals for the glory of their coun- 
 try. The firft, eftablifhed fome fewyears 
 lince at Cortona, on the frontiers of 
 Tufcany and the ecclefiaftical date, by 
 tne cares of the late marquis Venuti, 
 brother to the abbe of the fame name, 
 whom 1 have mentioned above, is yet 
 fupported only by the zeal of its mem- 
 bers, and has already fent into the world 
 fix volumes of difiertations : the other, 
 which is more ancient, and better known 
 under the name of the inflitution of 
 
 * The academy of Naples was not yet efta- 
 blifhed in 1755. 
 
 Bo- 
 
[ J 7? J 
 
 Bologna, is the work of the famous 
 count Marfigli, who was at once its 
 founder and benefaCtor. He purchafed 
 the palace for its reception, and has be- 
 queathed to it the celebrated collection 
 of natural hidory and antiquities of Ulyf- 
 fes Aldovrandus, which had been bought 
 and confiderably augmented by him. 
 The reigning pope alfo, who is a native 
 of Bologna, and was archbifhop of it 
 at the time that the Tiara crowned his 
 virtues, honours with his particular pro- 
 tection an eftablifhment which didin- 
 guilhes that city above all the other ci- 
 ties of Italy. They count there four- 
 and-twenty penfioners, called Benedetti , 
 from the name of their foundation. 
 
 Among the other favours which his 
 Holinefs was pleafed to confer on me, 
 the letter of recommendation iffued out 
 by him, at his own proper motion, 
 I 6 by 
 
[ *S° ] 
 
 by virtue of which the academy of Bo- 
 logna did me the honour of admitting 
 me into their illudrious body, without 
 waiting till the number of places pre- 
 ferred by their regulations fhould be- 
 come vacant, is not to be reckoned 
 among the lead:. 
 
 No church throughout the whole 
 chriftian world has lefs need of foreign or- 
 naments than that of St. Peter at Rome, 
 efpecially fince twenty popes, to ccunt 
 
 only from the time of Sextus V. have 
 with a generous emulation confecrated 
 their treafures towards the embellifh- 
 
 ment of that edifice. The old cudom, 
 however, dill prevails, and Grangers fee 
 with regret and furprife, that on great 
 folemnities they dill cover the piladers 
 of the bafiiico of St. Peter with hang- 
 ings that are rich indeed, but the ma- 
 terials and colour of which interupt the 
 harmony and profpetf: of a majedick 
 
 piece 
 
[ i8i ] 
 
 piece of architecture, and deprive the 
 eye of a fight of its marble lining and 
 thofe other ornaments of fculpture, with 
 which the interior part of that temple is 
 decorated. But be that as it will, this 
 cuftom of hanging and unhanging fo 
 often the church of St Peter, joined with 
 the difficulty of reaching up to its roofs, 
 or even to the arcades of the lower tides, 
 furnifhes the Italian artifts with frequent 
 opportunities of exercifing their talents 
 in the mechanical way. The engraved 
 collection of ingenious and commodious 
 machines, invented in’part for the church 
 of St. Peter, by Zabaglia, a perfon of 
 genius, though but a plain carpenter by 
 profeflion, is well known. In the month 
 of April 1 756, I faw one made by the 
 feignour Giovanni Cortini Roni, but of 
 a conftruCtion as Ample as elegant, which 
 had juft been fet up for the reparation of 
 the intide of the dome of the Pantheon. 
 
 This 
 
[ 1 82 ] 
 
 This fapplied with advantage the ex- 
 pen five apparatus of thofe fcaffolds, of 
 which we are fo prodigal in France, on 
 the like occafions. It was no more than 
 a Ample pair of heps, about feven or 
 eight feet broad, and fufpended to the 
 fummit of the dome. Thefe fteps were 
 borne along in a quadrant of a circle, 
 concentrical to the interior part of the 
 dome, and were prefer ved in their cur- 
 vature by an aflemblage of carpentry- 
 work like that of the cin&ures which 
 are ufed in' the conftru&ion of roofs j but 
 with this difference, that here, for the 
 greater lightnefs, flraight boards, laid,, 
 however, acrofs, fupplied the places of 
 fquare pieces of timber. The fummit 
 of the arc was paffed through by an 
 iron bolt, which at the fame time per- 
 formed the office of a pivot, and fuf- 
 pended by the fame bolt, placed diame- 
 trically over the circular opening in the 
 
 inidfl 
 
[ i»3 ] 
 
 midfi: of the cupola, by which the church 
 received its light. The foot of the heps 
 was furnifhed with rollers, and placed 
 on the cornice of the dome. The whole 
 of this machine, which was near feventy 
 feet high, moved fo freely, that it yielded 
 to the firft impulfe, in going round the 
 cornice ; and as it moved about fix feet 
 at a time, the workmen were able to 
 transfer themfelves with as much con- 
 venience as fafety to all the heights, and 
 all the different fides of the roof. I 
 underhand that there is to be feen at 
 Paris a model of this machine, in the 
 poflefiion of M. Trouart, a young ar- 
 chitect, who brought it from Rome. 
 
 The fpectacle which at prefent forms 
 the amufement of the people of Rome, 
 retains nothing of the barbarity of the 
 ancient combats of Gladiators. Some 
 of the princes and Roman noblemen 
 
 amufe 
 
[ 1 
 
 amufe themfelves by keeping horfes 
 purely for the courfe : not as in England, 
 backed by a rider, but alone, at full li- 
 berty, and entirely delivered up to their 
 natural ardour and that kind of emu- 
 lation which the concourfe of people 
 aflembled feems to infpire into them*. 
 
 Eight 
 
 * At Florence, in order to increafe the fpeed of 
 the horfes, which there alforun alone, without a 
 rider to direa them, they place a large piece of 
 leather, fomewhat in form of the wings of a fad- 
 dle, on their backs, ftuck full on the infide with 
 very {harp prickles. The barrier being formed, 
 and every thing ready for the race, the fpeftators 
 immediately fet up a loud fhout, at the noife of 
 which the horfes affrighted ftart off, and the 
 prickles in the flapping leather on their backs (till 
 continuing to goad them more and more as they 
 run, their fpeed is thus urged to the higheft pitch 
 their nerves will allow, till the goal at length hap- 
 pily puts an end to it, by terminating at once the 
 contefl and their pain. The barrier they run in 
 
 is 
 
t i«f 3 
 
 Eight or ten horfes, commonly barbs* * 
 of a fmall fize, and mean figure, retained 
 on the fame line by a rope extended 
 about the height of their bread:, fet off 
 at the indant when they let this rope 
 fall. In the races at carnival time, 
 which are the mod folemn, the courfe 
 is ufually in the long dreet at Rome, 
 to which this exercife has given the 
 name of the Rue de Courfe , or Race-jlreet 3 
 by the Italians called il Cor Jo. They take 
 care at fuch times to gravel it over : its 
 length is 865 toifes *■. I obferved 
 
 is formed by a ftrong railing, about breaft high, 
 with a rope at either end, to keep the horfes.,. 
 within the bounds, and the fpe&ators are all placed 
 on feats without. 
 
 * That is to fay from the rope of the extended 
 barrier, which is 74 feet beyond the obeliik, to the 
 Porta del Popolo at the faliant angle [of the palace 
 
 de Venife, 
 
 twice 
 
[ >86 ] 
 
 twice by means of a watch for feconds, 
 and the help of a fignal, that this di- 
 dance was run over in 141 feconds, 
 which makes near 37 feet a fecond. A 
 little reflexion will make this fpeed ap- 
 pear much more conflderable than at 
 fird we may imagine it to be. 
 
 It is evident that we cannot fnppofe 
 more than two leaps or progreflions on 
 gallop to one fecond, feeing that each 
 of thefe leaps requires at lead three very 
 didindt points of time : viz, that in 
 which the horfe lifts himfelf from the 
 ground, that in which we fee him cleav- 
 ing the air, and that in which he de- 
 fcends again ; and that thefe two bounds, 
 thus fuppofed to be made in every fe- 
 cond, require fix definitive moments, 
 a period fcarce perceptible in fo fhort a 
 fpace of time. Thefe horfes, which 
 are but of an inconfiderable fize, and 
 
 whofe 
 
[ i8 7 ] 
 
 ! whofe fwiftnefs every fecond is equal to 
 thirty- feven feet, pafs then at each bound 
 | over a fpace of more than eighteen feet, 
 which is very near equal to four times 
 the length of their body taken from the 
 bread to the tail *. It is true, indeed, 
 that this length is more than doubled 
 
 * It is upon principles of this kind that natura- 
 lifts prove a flea, comparatively fpeaking, to be 
 the ftrongeft, as well as fwifteft animal in being. 
 For as fwiftnefs depends upon a ftrong confor- 
 mation of the mufcles, of which we have a re- 
 markable inftance in the hind legs of a hare, from 
 whence it is well known, that, like deer, grey- 
 hounds, and other quadrupeds, fhe derives her ve- 
 locity j and as this fwiftnefs again is to be mea- 
 fured- by the diftance they throw themfelves at 
 every bound, compared with the length of their 
 bodies if we examine the fpeed and ftrength of a 
 flea by this method of reafoning, we fhall find that 
 inftead of four, it is able to throw itfelf at leaft 
 forty times its length j a force and velocity ten 
 times greater than that of the barbs at Rome. 
 
[ *88 ] 
 
 by the extenfion which their outftretched 
 gallop gives to their limbs before and 
 behind. All this confidered, how can 
 the fleetnefs of the Englilh horfes be by 
 a great deal greater, as it is known in re- 
 ality to be ? But there are certain cafes 
 wherein the truth furpaffesall the bounds 
 of probability, and of this kind is that at 
 prefent under our confideration. 
 
 
 The lateM. Dufay writ in 1757, from 
 Newmarket, that the courfe there of 
 four Englilh miles *, of which he had 
 been an eye-witnefs, had been completed 
 in lefs than eight minutes by four or 
 
 * The Englilh mile was fixed by Henry VII. 
 at 1760 yards or rods of three feet each, confe- 
 quently this mile contains 5280 Englilh feet, 
 which are equivalent to 4957 of the Paris mea- 
 gre, or to 826 of our toifes ; the proportion of 
 the Englilh foot to ours being as 1352 to 1440. 
 
 five 
 
[ «8p ] 
 
 five feconds. Thefe miles are 826 of 
 our toifes, which makes more than 4 1 
 feet j- in a fecond, or near five feet more 
 than the barbs at Rome y and we mull 
 alfo remark here that thefe latter run at 
 full liberty, whereas the Englifh horfes 
 are burthened with the weight of a 
 rider *. This fleetnefs, however, of 41 
 feet is flill but an ordinary degree of 
 fwiftnefs there, inafmuch as of ten horfes 
 which ran together, the very hindmoft 
 of them was no more than twelve or 
 fifteen paces from the end of the courfe. 
 Belides, it is afferted that the fame courfe 
 has been frequently run over in fix 
 minutes and fix feconds. I have this as 
 a fadt from a gentleman who has often 
 been concerned in the races at New- 
 
 * The author might have added, that thefe riders 
 alfo frequently carry weights. 
 
 market ; 
 
[ > 9 ° ] 
 
 market * ; and this fwiftnefs, which 
 would amount to more than fifty-four 
 feet in a fecond, is to that of the barbs 
 nearly as three to two. We mufl alfo 
 obferve, that inllead of one Englifh 
 mile, or very little more, to which the 
 courfe at Rome is limited, that of New- 
 market is four miles, a fpace too long 
 for the fwiftnefs of any horfe to pre- 
 ferve itfelf through on a fenfible equality. 
 It is evident that this fwiftnefs mufl 
 abate towards the end of the courfe, 
 and confequently that in the firfl mo- 
 ments of the race its maximum mufl 
 be at leafl upwards of fifty-four feet in 
 a fecond. We are likewife allured that 
 a famous horfe, called Starling, has 
 fometimes performed the firfl mile in a 
 
 * Mr Taaffe, now at Paris. [This gentleman 
 is fince dead.] 
 
 mi- 
 
C ipi ] 
 
 minute, which would make 82 feet ~ 
 in a fecond ; a degree of fwiftnefs in- 
 conceivable, even though we fhould 
 fuppofe it to be exaggerated, as there is 
 great appearance it is : But this is a point 
 on which I expedt fome further eluci- 
 dations*. It would be fuflicient that 
 
 this 
 
 * The following are the elucidations I have re- 
 ceived, fince the reading of this memoir, fromM. 
 (Dr.) Maty, keeper of the library in the Britifh 
 Mufeum, and author of a periodical work in 
 French, which is greatly efteemed, entitled, le 
 "Journal Britannique. “ There are (fays Dr. 
 Maty) two courfes at Newmarket, the long and 
 the round : the firft is exactly four Englifh mea- 
 fured miles and 380 yards or more ; that is to fay, 
 7420 yards or Englifh rods, or 3482 of our toifes. 
 The fecond is not four Englifh miles by 400 
 yards; that is to fay, it is 6640 yards, or 31 16 toifes, 
 Paris. Childers, the fwifteft horfe ever remem- 
 bered, has run the firft courfe in feven minutes and 
 a half, and the fecond in fix minutes forty feconds, 
 
 which 
 
[ ] 
 
 this fwiftnefs fhould laft only a few 
 feconds, in order to enable us to fay 
 without any exaggeration, that fuch a 
 horfe went fwifter than the wind, as it 
 is feldom that the mod: violent wind 
 makes as much ground in the time. 
 
 which amounts to 46 feet five, or nine inches 
 French, in the fecond : whereas all other horfes 
 fince the foregoing, take up at leaft feven minutes 
 and fifty feconds in completing |the firft and 
 longeft courfe, and feven minutes only in the 
 fhorteft, which is 44 feet, five or fix inches, the 
 fecond. Thele (Dr. Maty adds) are fads, which 
 I believe to be true. I rnuft alfo add, that it is 
 commonly fuppofed, that thefe courfers cover at 
 every bound, a fpace of ground in length about 24 
 Englifh feet.” This is little wide of my conjedure 
 of two bounds in the fecond. Every bound in this 
 cafe would be about 18 royal feet and a half, for 
 the fleetefl: barb in Rome, and twenty- two or 
 twenty-three feet royal for the Englifh running 
 horfes ; fo that the fwiftnefs of the latter to that 
 of the barbs, is very nearly as four to three, 
 
 5 
 
 For 
 
[ *93 ] 
 
 For the greateft fwiftnefs of a ffiip at 
 Tea has never been known to exceed fix 
 marine leagues in an hour ; and if we 
 fuppofe that the veffiel thus borne par- 
 takes one third of the fwiftnefs of the 
 wind which drives it, the latter would 
 ilill be no more than eighty feet a 
 fecond. 
 
 I departed from Rome on the a 2d of 
 April 1756, and took the road to Lo- 
 retto. I faw on the way the celebrated 
 cafcade of Terni, to which Miffion, a 
 pretty exadt traveller, gives the height 
 of thiee hundred feet. I do not believe 
 it has been ever meafured with preci- 
 lion, and the local circumftances of its 
 fituation render the affair difficult: I 
 ffiould not give it above two hundred 
 feet on a comparifon of its total height 
 with that of a part of it, which I my- 
 felf attempted to meafbre. This caf- 
 K C ad e 
 
[ *94- ] 
 
 cade appears three times higher than 
 that of Tivoli. The cafcade of the 
 5£le of Sora, which is lefs known, be- 
 caufe farther removed out of the high' 
 road, and which I went exprefsly to fee 
 in my return from Naples, is the lowed: 
 but the \Wdeft of the three. The Ga- 
 rigliano, which is formed by the re- 
 union of the Lyris and the Fibreno, at 
 one mile’s diftance below this junction, 
 divides itfelf into two branches, in the 
 place where it meets the rock which 
 forms that ifle, and precipitates itfelf 
 downwards by two cafcades j the one 
 perpendicular, about fixty feet high and 
 forty broad, the other much lefs lapid, 
 but the fight of which is not lefs An- 
 gular, nor lefs agreeable to the eye. 
 
 On the 27th of April, being at Lo- 
 retto, I faw the fun rife from beyond 
 the Adriatick, at about four degrees 
 
 Eaft 
 
t 19s ] 
 
 Eaft by North of the compafs, from 
 whence I concluded the declination of 
 the needle to be fifteen degrees thirty- 
 five minutes from north to weft. I had 
 hoped to have feen, at the rifing of the 
 fun, the mountains of Dalmatia, on the 
 other fide of the gulf of Venice; but 
 the fogs hindered me from diftinguilhing 
 them both that and the fucceeding days, 
 for the whole length of the coafi:, which 
 I followed from Ancona as far as Ra- 
 venna. By means, however, of the en- 
 quiries which I made, I found in thefe 
 cantons feveral perfons, who allured me, 
 as being eye-witnefles, of another fadt, 
 of which till that time I had been ufe- 
 lefsly informed : this was, that there are 
 feveral points of the Apennine, on the 
 frontiers of the Ecclefiaftical Rate of 
 Tufcany, and the duchy of Modena, 
 from whence we may fee the two feas 
 K 2 which 
 
[ ] 
 
 which bound Italy to the Eaff and 
 Weft*. It was not a vain curiofity which 
 induced me to affine myfelf of this 
 fadt j but the advantage that might be 
 drawn from a concurrence of circum- 
 ffances, rare, and perhaps only there to 
 be met with. 
 
 We have had within thefe twenty 
 years, five different menfurations of the 
 Latitude -f of the earth, but we have 
 
 * Among others, from a fummit near Borgo 
 San-Sepolcro ; and a convent of Camaldulians, 
 near the fources of the Arno, between Val- 
 lombrofo and Bagno, on the frontiers of Tuf- 
 cany and the Ecclefiaftical ftate j and laflly from 
 Mount Cimone, near Seftola. 
 
 f In Lapland, Peru, France, at the Cape of 
 Good Hope, and in Italy, completed in 1737, 
 1742, 1740, 1752 , and 1755. 
 
 hardly 
 
[ 3 97 ] 
 
 hardly one of its Longitude *. The 
 apparent impoflibility of attaining to a 
 fufficient degree of precifion, for want 
 of our being able to find an arc large 
 enough parallel to the Equator, and 
 fit for meafuring, has almofl made us 
 defpair of this method. But if any 
 place in the world feems to unite all the 
 molt favourable circumftances for mea- 
 furing an arc in Longitude, it is in this 
 part of Italy. 
 
 * By MefT. Caffini, de Thuri, and de la Caille, 
 on the coafts of Provence and Languedoc, in 1742. 
 See the book entitled, the Meridian of Paris Veri- 
 fied, page 105. 
 
 f The error to be apprehended in this mea- 
 fure, with refpedl to the inftant of the appearance 
 of an inftantaneous fignal, not being greater on a 
 large arc than a fmall one, will make it by fo 
 much the lefs in every degree, as its arc contains 
 a greater number. 
 
 k 3 
 
 A fig- 
 
[ * 9 $ ] 
 
 A fignal placed on one of the fam- 
 uli ts of the Appennine, from whence 
 we may fee the Adriatick to the Eaft, 
 and the Tufcan fea to the Weft, cannot 
 fail being perceived from one coaft to 
 the other, provided it be of a fufficient 
 magnitude. I fappofe for inftance, that 
 it may be feen from Ravenna or Rimini 
 on one fide, and from Leghorn or Pifa 
 on the other. Here then we have an 
 arc of more than two degrees in Lon- 
 gitude, and eafy to be meafared: but 
 this is not all ; for that diftance may at 
 leaft be doubled, of which the following 
 is a proof: from the intermediary fam- 
 mit of the Appennines, from whence 
 we fee the two feas, one to the Eaft, the 
 other to the Weft, the fight can be only 
 bounded by the obje&s which termi- 
 nate the horizon of the fea, and which 
 are perceived on both fides. From this 
 fame fummit then we ought neceflarily 
 
 to 
 
[ !99 1 
 
 to fee in clear and ferene weather the fun 
 rife from behind the mountains of Iftria 
 and Croatia, and fet beneath thofe of 
 Genoa. Confequentiy a fudden flame 
 of a fufficient volume, produced either 
 by a mafs of gunpowder, as was pro- 
 pofed by me in 1 735 *, and was actually 
 carried into execution in 1740, or by a 
 bomb of pafteboard placed on the fum- 
 mit of the Apennine chofen for that 
 purpofe, might in a fine night be feen 
 by two perfons appointed to obferve it, 
 with each a regulator by him ; the one 
 at Monaco, or on the mountains of Ge- 
 noa, the other on Cape Pola in Iftria, 
 near Triefte. The difference of the 
 hour in which each of them would 
 
 * See Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences for 
 1 735> page 1 j and the Meridian of Paris Verified, 
 page 98 . 
 
 K. 4 
 
 per- 
 
[ 200 ] 
 
 perceive this artificial phenomenon, will 
 give the difference of the Meridians of the 
 two obfervatories, and the meafure of 
 an arc nearly five degrees in Longitude. 
 
 Though we fhould be able to affure 
 ourfelves of this difference of the hour 
 but nearly within a fecond * (I am of 
 
 opinion, ' 
 
 * I have found by experience, beneath the 
 Equator, where the ftars rife perpendicularly, and 
 with very great rapidity, that it is not difficult, 
 by taking feveral correfpondent heights, to in- 
 form one’s-felf with certainty of the inftant of 
 noon, 2nd above all of the mediation of a ftar 
 nearly within a fecond ; and experienced obferv- 
 ers will find perhaps that we may attain to a 
 greater precifion. This half- fecond of time an- 
 fwers to an arc of a degree of feven feconds and 
 a half, which we may eftimate beneath the Equa- 
 tor at one hundred and twenty toifes, and which 
 would be reduced again to eighty-four toifes, un- 
 der a parallel of forty -four degrees and a half. 
 
 Now 
 
[ 201 ] 
 
 opinion, however, that it is poffible to 
 attain a much greater degree of exadt- 
 
 nefs. 
 
 Now an error of eighty- four toifes in an arc of 
 five degrees would not produce one of feventeen 
 toifes to a degree, inftead of thirty-four, which I 
 have fuppofed ; the following is the reafon of it : 
 The difficulty of determining the hour exadlly by 
 correfpondent heights increafes in an oblique 
 fphere, where the apparent motion of the ftars 
 is flower; and increafes precifely in the fame pro- 
 poition as the obliquity of the fphere, or in an in- 
 verfe ratio to the coflnus of latitude. Thus, for 
 example, beneath the parallel of fixty degrees, 
 the radius of which is fubduple to that of the 
 Equator, the fuppofed arc of feven feconds and a 
 half would be by a moiety fhorter, and confe- 
 quently would be only fixty toifes inflead of a 
 hundred and twenty ; but the difficulty of taking 
 the hour exadlly would be alfo as great again be- 
 neath this parallel, and inftead of an error of half 
 a fecond, which we fuppofe might be made un- 
 der the Equator, there would be under the pa- 
 rallel of fixty degrees an error of one fecond of 
 time to be apprehended, which anfwers to fifteen 
 K 5 feconds 
 
[ ] 
 
 nefsj if we take all the necefiarv ore- 
 
 ^ JL 
 
 cautions, and efpecially if the obferva- 
 
 tions 
 
 feconds of a degree. Now an arc of fifteen fe- 
 conds of a degree half as little, is equal in length 
 to an arc of feven feconds and a half in a de- 
 gree that is as large again. This would make us 
 then an exadt compcnfation for it, and the error 
 to which we fhould be expofed in the determina- 
 tion of the hour will be the fame .under any pa- 
 rallel that we proceed upon : A circumftance 
 which has not, that I know of, been remarked, 
 or at leaft not explained, till now. It follows 
 from thence, that the exadtnefs of the aftronomi- 
 cal menfuration of an arc of Longitude may be 
 equal in every country, and that it depends only 
 on the length of the arc in toifes, whatever be 
 the number of its degrees. If I were to confine 
 myfelf then to the fuppofition of half a fecond, 
 at which I efiimate, from my own experience, 
 the error poffible to be committed in the deter- 
 mination of the hour, by correfpondent heights, 
 beneath the Equator, this error would not be pro- 
 portionally more than forty-two thirds for the 
 parallel of forty-four degrees and a half, and 
 
 would 
 
[ 20 3 ] 
 
 tions are often repeated) yet this error 
 of a fecond in time, which is equiva- 
 lent 
 
 would produce, like that of half a fecond beneath 
 the Equator, only an error of a hundred and 
 twenty toifes on an arc of five degrees ; which 
 would be no more than twenty-four toifes to a 
 degree, inftead of thirty- four, which I have 
 computed. But as the method which I have 
 propofed requires two obfervers, and it might 
 happen, abfolutely fpeaking, that their errors, in- 
 ftead of being none at all, or lefs, which I have 
 not fuppofed them, might be as great as it is 
 poffible for them to be, and that inftead of com- 
 penfating one another, they might be doubled, 
 though repeated and multiplied obfervations might 
 be a remedy, morally fpeaking, for this accident, 
 yet I have fuppofed the total error of the two 
 obfervers to be a whole fecond, even on taking 
 a medium between their feveral obfervations. 
 This fecond anfwers not to a hundred and fe- 
 venty toifes on the parallel of forty- four degrees 
 and a half, and yet it is on the fuppofition of 
 that error, which furpafles all the bounds of pro- 
 bability, that the error in a degree would be, 
 K 6 and 
 
[ 204 ] 
 
 lent to fifteen feconds of a degree, 
 amounts not in a parallel of forty-four 
 degrees to one hundred and feventy 
 toiles, which, being divided again 
 among five degrees, would make only 
 thiity-four toifes error to a degree; con- 
 fequently, the meafure of this arc of 
 five degrees in Longitude, would afford 
 as much or more precifion than our 
 inenfuration of three degrees of the 
 Meridian, which I think I have proved 
 we can anfwer for, to within very near 
 forty toifes *. 
 
 and hardly, thirty-four toifes.' It is evident then 
 that the propofed menfuration in Longitude is 
 fufceptible of as great, or even a greater preci- 
 
 hon, than that of three degrees of the Meri- 
 dian. 
 
 * See the meafures of the three firft degrees 
 of the Meridian, printed at the Louvre in i 7 cr 
 P- 2 32. ’ 
 
 t 
 
 I 
 
[ 2°5 3 
 
 If Father Ximenes, the reftorer of 
 the Meridian of Florence, be commif- 
 fioned to make a map of Tufcany, and 
 to meafure there an arc of the Meri- 
 dian, his Geodefian meafures, joined to 
 thofe of the fathers Maire and Bofco- 
 vick, will extend from one fea of Italy 
 to the other, and go a great way to- 
 wards taking the propofed menfuration 
 in Longitude, which is fo well calcu- 
 lated to furnifh us with new lights, re- 
 fpe&ing the figure of the earth. 
 
 My firft care on my arrival at Bo- 
 logna was to acquit myfelf of the ac- 
 knowledgements which I owed to the 
 gentlemen of the InftitutioJt. The 
 count of Cafali, one of the profefibrs, 
 and M. Zanotti, perpetual fecretary to 
 that illuftrious body, were fo kind as 
 to give themfelves the trouble of ac- 
 companying me wherever I went, We 
 
 fe§ 
 
[ 2 o6 ] 
 
 fee at Bologna afiembled in one palace, 
 what, in London, and in Paris, is 
 found difperfed in all quarters of the 
 town, a publick library, enriched 
 every day with new donations from 
 the holy father ; an obfervatory ; cabi- 
 nets of natural hiftory, experimental 
 phyficks, mechanicks, medals, and an- 
 tiquities ; vaft collections and anatomi- 
 cal preparations, natural and artificial ; 
 halls for academies of painting, fculp- 
 ture, and architecture, both civil and 
 military, ornamented with plans in re- 
 lief, and models of machines ufed in 
 war 5 cabinets of geography and navi- 
 gation: in fhort, every thing which 
 can preferve a tafte for the arts and fci- 
 ences, and facilitate the progrels of 
 knowledge in the human mind. I was 
 prefent at feveral academical le&ures 
 and difcourfes. One of their profeflors 
 of anatomy is Madam Laura Baffi, a 
 
 lady 
 
[ *°7 ] 
 
 lady extremely well vcrfed in the Greek 
 and Latin languages, and wife to M. 
 Verati, another celebrated profeffor. 
 She is not the only lady in Italy, who 
 in our days has procured herfelf a 
 name in the republick of letters by her 
 genius and knowledge. We are all ac- 
 quainted with the treatife on the calcu- 
 lation of differences, by the learned 
 Madam Agnefi of Milan, who has juft 
 buried her talents in a cloifter $ and the 
 learned tranflations of Madam Arding- 
 helli of Naples, who at the moft ten- 
 der age diftinguifhed herfelf by her 
 progrefs in phyficks. 
 
 Independently of the luftre which fo 
 fine an eftablifhment as that of the In- 
 ftitution diffufes over Bologna, that city 
 is one of the largeft and moft beautiful 
 in all Italy. Every thing contributed 
 to render my abode there agreeable, 
 
 and 
 
[ 208 ] 
 
 and indeed I fhould have needed for 
 that purpofe nothing more than the 
 Angle houfe of the Felt-marfhal Pala- 
 vicini, late governor of Milan, who 
 had made choice of Bologna for his 
 refidence, and from whom I received, 
 without any letter of recommendation, 
 the moft flattering advances in my fa- 
 vour. Bologna firfl: fet the example, 
 which the greatefl: part of the cities of 
 Italy have fince followed for thefe 
 twenty years paft, in eftablifhing a Ca- 
 Jino . This is the name which they 
 give to a large handfome houfe, fur- 
 nifhed and maintained at the common 
 expence of the nobility of the city. 
 The beft company of both fexes affetn- 
 ble there every evening, and Grangers 
 of note, when once they have been 
 prefented, are afterwards admitted. Bo- 
 logna is governed as a republick by the 
 authority of a fenate. The popes, to 
 
 whom 
 
[ 209 3 
 
 whom this city fubmitted herfelf vo- 
 luntarily many ages ago, enjoy there 
 the honours and the fovereignty; but 
 the Bolognefe have preferved their pri- 
 vileges. They have an ambaffador in 
 ordinary at Rome, and unite the ad- 
 vantages of a republican form of go- 
 vernment to thofe of a monarchy. 
 
 I have fpoken above of the Meridian 
 of Bologna? and its leaning tower, 
 which attracts the attention of travel- 
 lers. 
 
 After taking a hafty view of Reggio, 
 Modena, and Parma, and believing myfelf 
 in France at Colorno, where I had the ho- 
 nour of paying my court to his royal high- 
 nefs the infant duke of Parma, and like- 
 wife to the infanta, I paifed on to Mantua 
 and Ferrara, from whence I' repaired 
 to Venice at the end of May, in order 
 
 to 
 
[ 2«0 ] 
 
 to be prefent at the ceremony whereby 
 the doge annually efpoufes the Adria- 
 tick, a time there of feflivity and tu- 
 mult, and very ill adapted to obferva- 
 tions which require eafe and tranquil- 
 lity. 
 
 Amiufl: the feveral curiofities which 
 they fhow to Grangers, in the fmall 
 arfenal at Venice is a piece of cut vel- 
 vet, on a ground of gol^ as lingular 
 for its workmanfhip as its antiquity. 
 This was a prefent of Uffum-Caffan, 
 king of Perfla, to the republick of Ve- 
 nice, to which he fent ambaffadors in 
 1572. The gold ground is of a flat- 
 tened fluff, as if it had been palled 
 under the cylinder ; the fur of the vel- 
 vet, however, is railed ; it reprefents 
 not branches or flowers of flriking co- 
 lours like ours, but human figures, 
 pretty well defigned, and the draperies 
 
 and 
 
t 211 ] 
 
 and carnations of which have {hades 
 enough to imitate the natural. This 
 effort of art, which we fhould find it 
 difficult perhaps, at this very day, to 
 puffi farther, may enable us to judge 
 how very long ago that of working filk 
 has been carried to perfection in the 
 Ealf . And what proves clearly the fu- 
 periority of the Orientals in this kind 
 of workmanfhip, or at lead: their great 
 progrefs in it before the Europeans, is 
 that this prefent of a powerful monarch 
 to the republick of Venice, fuppofes 
 evidently, that this fpecies of velvet 
 manufacture was unknown in that city, 
 at a time when her ffiken manufac- 
 tures, which had made thofe of Greece 
 decline, were at their higheft degree of 
 reputation. 
 
 The art of making filk tiffues, which 
 is very ancient in the Eaft, had paffied 
 
 over 
 
[ 212 ] 
 
 over into Europe under the Roman 
 emperors. But being banifhed into the 
 remoteft parts of Afia, after the inva- 
 lion of the Barbarians, who deftroyed 
 the Empire, this beautiful art was 
 brought back again to Conftantinople, 
 in the fixteenth century, by fome 
 monks who were on their return from 
 Serinda, which lies between the rivers 
 Indus and Ganges. The manufactures 
 of filken Ruffs eftablifhed in Greece, 
 and tranfported into Sicily by Roger, 
 about the year 1148, were brought to 
 perfection at Lucca, at Bologna, and at 
 Venice, in the following century, three 
 hundred years before the firft pair of 
 filk {lockings, which were prefented to 
 Henry II. appeared in France. They 
 knew then that the leaf of the mul- 
 berry-tree was the moft proper food for 
 hlk-worms, but they erroneoufly ima- 
 gined, that mulberry-trees would not 
 
 grow 
 
t 2>3 ] 
 
 grow any where but in a warm cli- 
 mate ; and this fmgle prejudice deferred 
 for many ages their tranfplantation from 
 Sicily and Calabria into the North of 
 Italy. Since thofe times we have feen 
 them fucceed extremely well in France, 
 and even in countries fituated much 
 farther to the North : An inflance 
 which ought to encourage all proper 
 endeavours to naturalize in our climates 
 fuch ufeful produ&ions as nature has 
 refufed us. 
 
 From Venice I took the route of Tu- 
 rin, but flayed only a few days at Pa- 
 dua and Milan, the latter of which is 
 one of the mofl plealing cities in Italy 
 to Grangers, and --that wherein the 
 French are the leafl fo of any; the 
 manner of living there comes up much 
 nearer to that of Paris than in all the 
 other cities of Italy. 
 
 The 
 
[ 2*4 ] 
 
 The celebrated Ambrofian library 
 contains, among other treafures, be- 
 tween nine and ten thoufand ancient 
 manufcripts, a great number of which 
 are oriental, and brought from Greece, 
 Syria, and Egypt. They are all bound 
 up, but without titles, and diftinguifh- 
 ed only by their numbers. We per- 
 ceived thfere thofe of which the fathers 
 Mabillon and Monfaueon have taken 
 notice. The famous Muratori, in his 
 vaft collection of Italian hiftorians, has 
 publiftied fome, and made ufe of feve- 
 ral others : The reft are unknown. 
 They keep them fecret, and do not 
 even as much as fhow the catalogue of 
 them to ftrangers j which might make 
 it fufpedted that this catalogue is im- 
 perfect. If the intention of the foun- 
 der * had been followed, and but for a 
 
 * Cardinal Frederick Borromeo, archhifhop of 
 Milan, coufin to St. Charles and his TucceiTor. 
 
 c cen- 
 
[ 21 S ] 
 
 century and a half ago fixteen perfons 
 of learning verfed in the feveral kinds 
 of literature, and a knowledge of the 
 oriental languages, had applied them- 
 felves to decypher, explain, and publifh 
 thefe manufcripts, the republick of let- 
 ters would long fince have reaped the 
 fruit of their labours ; but for want of 
 fufficient funds, there are at prefent but 
 three dodtors maintained to look after 
 this library, and thus the greateft part 
 of the trealures contained in it remains! 
 buried in obfcurity. 
 
 I faw in a cabinet of pictures annex- 
 ed to the Ambrofian library, a numer- 
 ous collection of defigns for machines, 
 executed and invented by Leonardo da 
 Vinci, a cotemporfcry and rival of Mi- 
 chael Angelo. It is well known, that 
 Leonardo being invited into France by 
 Francis I. expired in the arms of that 
 
 prince 
 
[ 216 ] 
 
 prince, on receiving his vifit. To the 
 merit of a good painter, he joined alfo 
 that of a good mathematician, for the 
 age he lived in. 
 
 His mafter-piece in painting is a 
 pi&ure in frefco, reprefenting our Lord’s 
 fupper, with his twelve apoftles, a lit- 
 tle larger than the life. This piece is 
 twenty feet long, by ten high. It is 
 to be feen at Milan in the refectory of 
 the Dominicans. It is furprifing to 
 find a picture now fo frefh, which ap- 
 peared fo black and defaced to MifTon, 
 eighty years ago, that this traveller affures 
 us, he was not able to make out any 
 part of it. The prefent colouring, in- 
 deed, is not at all like that in the 
 other works of Lednardo. It is not 
 fufficient then to fuppofe, that within 
 thefe twenty-five or thirty years pad: 
 this picture has been cleaned by any 
 
 un- 
 
[ 2i 7 ] 
 
 unknown fecret, as travellers fay • but 
 it mull: alfo have been painted over en- 
 tirely anew. This I have been well 
 a flu red of from very good authority. 
 There is great appearance, therefore, 
 that the beautiful difpofition, the choice 
 of attitudes, the diftribution of the 
 figures, in one word, that the compofition 
 is at prefent the only thing in this pic- 
 tuue which belongs with certainty to its 
 fuA author. It will not be deviating 
 far from the objed which I propofed to 
 myfelf in this memoir, if I remark that 
 not only the rules of perfpedive, which 
 are too often negleded by the greateA 
 painters, are regularly obferved in this, 
 but alfo thofe of opticks. We may 
 judge of the truth of this affertion by 
 the different polition of the points of 
 light which are varioufly reflected by 
 the chryflal veifels according to their 
 different form, or as their fltintion is 
 L 
 
 more 
 
[ 218 ] 
 
 more or lefs oblique with refpeft to 
 the ray of light which ftrikes them. 
 
 I faw at Turin fame experiments 
 that were new to me, relative to the ef- 
 fects of gun-powder ; and likewife two 
 machines, which appeared to me very 
 ingenious i the firft was a wind-gun > 
 which they loaded by fetting fire, by 
 means of a touch-hole, to two ounces 
 of powder enclofed in a very thick cy- 
 linder of brafs : this train, in commu- 
 nicating the fire through a very narrow 
 channel, burns a thread which ihuts up 
 with a trigger the enterance of the cham- 
 ber where the powder is put : the latter 
 thereon takes fire without any explofion, 
 and the air being dilated by this infla- 
 mation, preferves its fpring for feveral 
 months. They caufe alfo a fmall por- 
 tion of it to pafs into a fecond chamber 
 by opening a partition which fhuts up 
 
[ 2I 9 1 
 again immediately, and this little por- 
 tion of the flame is fufficient to drive, 
 on pulling down a trigger, a leaden ball 
 fixty paces off. They can fire eighteen 
 times fucceffively in this manner, but 
 each time with a diminution of its 
 force. 
 
 The other machine is defigned to 
 meafure the ftrength of the powder, 
 which flill keeps on burning in the 
 clofed cylinder of brafs. The dilatation 
 of the air produced by this inflammation, 
 caufes the water contained in the bot- 
 tom of the fame cylinder to afcend to 
 a certain height in a glafs tube fitted 
 thereto. They then fuffer the air to 
 enter again by applying to the cylinder 
 a treading pump; and we thus fee how 
 much of the inflamed fpirit is neceflary 
 to condenfe the air contained in the 
 cylinder, in order to make the water 
 ^ 2 afcend 
 
[ 22 ° ] 
 
 nfcend in the tube of graduated glafs, to 
 the fame degree as the firing of the 
 powder had raifed it. The inventor 
 of thefe machines is M. Mathi, pen- 
 fionary of the king of Sardinia. 
 
 In the cabinet of natural hiftory be- 
 longing to M. Donati, profeffor in the 
 univerfity of Turin, I faw fever al petrified 
 trunks of trees, which had been dug 
 up out of the mountains of Genoa. 
 Thefe leave us no room for fufpicion 
 as to the reality of their petrifaction. 
 
 I palled over Mount Cenis : on the 
 4th of July 1756, all the fnows there 
 were not difibived 5 and on the 14th of 
 the preceding month the waters of a 
 little lake abounding in trout, fituated 
 on the height of a defile, through which 
 the high road leads, were Hill frozen 
 
 over. 
 
 As 
 
[ 221 ] 
 
 As Mount Cenis paffes for one of the 
 highefl mountains of Europe, I was de- 
 
 liious to make fome experiments there 
 on the barometer, and to compare the 
 height which I fhould obferve the mer- 
 cuiy at in tnat place with thofe which 
 I had remarked on the loftiefh moun- 
 tains of lei u. Accordingly I afcended 
 the mod: elevated fummit near the road 
 to the right, about fifteen or fixteen 
 hundred toifes from the pond above- 
 mentioned, and from the hofpital of 
 the Pelerins. I had already got as high 
 as the village of Novalefe, after three 
 hours travelling on horfeback, through 
 a road which had been then newly re- 
 paired. I afcended again on foot for 
 the fpace of near four hours more, and 
 the lad: of them through a dry foil, 
 interfperfed with fragments of rocks, 
 broken into leaves, and confiding of a 
 ipecies of Schite-flone, or rough baflard 
 
 ardoife, 
 
[ 222 } 
 
 ardoife, which were only interrupted by 
 mades of fnow in fiich places as were 
 mod; hollow. There wanted dill twenty 
 toifes of perpendicular height before I 
 could have attained the top of the 
 mountain ; when in eroding a hollow 
 way covered with fnow, and the tides 
 of which were pretty deep, I perceived 
 my foot fail under me. All I could do 
 was to throw myfelf backwards on my 
 breech: I Aided in this pofition the 
 length of twelve or fifteen toifes, driving 
 down the fnow before me with hands 
 and feet, in order to retard the rapidity 
 of my fall : (I am entering here into a 
 detail of what may not be unferviceable 
 on a like occafion) I dopped where the 
 bed of fnow ended, and where the 
 fragments of the rock began.: I got off 
 for a contufion on my foot and a few 
 fcratches. I regained thin, not with- 
 out difficulty, the foot of the rock, where 
 
 the 
 
[ 22 3 ] 
 
 the peafant had remained who ferved 
 me as a guide, and I confoled myfelf 
 for the accident that had befallen me, 
 on finding my barometer in good con- 
 dition. It was now near noon : I ob- 
 ferved the height of the mercury to be 
 nineteen inches ten lines and a half*, 
 that is to fay, a line and three quarters 
 lower than at Quito in Spanifh America, 
 near the Equator, where by a great num- 
 ber of experiments we fixed the me- 
 dium height of the mercury at twenty 
 inches and ^ of a line -f*, a height equi- 
 
 * This experiment was made with the portable 
 barometer broke at Mount Vefuvius, and which 
 I had got mended at Rome. I have compared it, 
 fince my return to Paris, with the befl: con- 
 firutSled and moft accurately divided barometers, 
 and have re&ified my obfervations of the heights 
 by them. 
 
 f See in the Hiftorical Journal of a Voyage to 
 the Equator, printed at the Louvre in 1751, the 
 Latin infcription left at Quito, page 163. 
 
 L 4 valent 
 
[ 22 4 ] 
 
 valent to 1460 toifes above the level of 
 the fea : whence I conclude that the 
 place where I a&ualiy made this laft 
 experiment was not above thirty toifes 
 higher than the ground at Quito, the 
 level of which furpaffes by more than 
 twenty toifes the very utmoft top of 
 the Canigou *, the higheft mountain of 
 all the Pyrenees. It is true that I faw 
 from the place where I fell fome points 
 of Mount Cenis, which were higher 
 than thofe that I was then labouring: 
 upon 5 but the difference was not con- 
 fiderable, and amounted not to fifty 
 toifes, as far as I was able to judge 
 of it. 
 
 * The Canigou is 1440 toifes high, according 
 to the geometrical menfuration of M. Caffini. 
 The mercury rofe there in 1740 to twenty 
 inches two lines See Obfervations on Natural 
 Hiftory, by M. le Monnier, phyfician, Meridian 
 verified, page 224. 
 
 On 
 
[ ] 
 
 On my return to the hofpital of the Pe- 
 lerins, I obferved there the height of the 
 mercury in the fame barometer, at three 
 o’clock in the afternoon, to be 22 inches 
 and half a line : that is to fay, 26 lines 
 more than at my ftation on the top of 
 the mountain, which amounts to near 
 5.00 toifes difference in the height of: 
 the two places. 
 
 Mount Cenis, therefore, mud: ne- 
 ceffarily be the highed: mountain of the 
 Alps. Yet the White Mountain *, 
 which we fee from the banks of the 
 lake, of Geneva, at fourteen or fifteen 
 leagues diftance to the fouth-eaft, and 
 the upper half of which is always covered 
 withfnow,is incomparably much higher. 
 M. Fatio de Duillier, who meafured its 
 
 * They give this mountain feveral names. 
 
 L S. height.: 
 
[ 22(5 ] 
 
 height geometrically, makes it at the 
 haft 2 0co toifes above the furface of 
 the lake; and the latter again 4 26 toifes 
 above the level of the fea, according to a 
 caiculationfounded on the declivity of the 
 lb hone , from its difeharge out of the lake, 
 by efti.mating this declivity at no more 
 than double that of the Loire, meafured 
 by M. Picard: thus the total height of 
 the White Mountain is,, according to 
 M. Fatio, 242 6 toifes above the fea, 
 which amounts within a very little to 
 the height of the craggy and eaftern 
 iummit of the volcano of Pitchincha,, 
 where I myfelf faw the mercury defeend, 
 in the barometer to lixteen inches*.. 
 
 * The city of Quito, flnce in a great meafure 
 demolifhed by an earthquake, is fituated at the 
 foot of the volcano of Pitchincha, the higheft.- 
 Xurnmit of which exceeds the level of that city by 
 about a thoufand toifes*. 
 
 ' But. 
 
[ 2i 7 ] 
 
 But M. de Chezeaux, who meafured a 
 much larger bafe than M. Fatio, and 
 who ought therefore to have attained a 
 precilion as much greater in the heights 
 which he had deduced from thence, in* 
 creafes ftill the altitude of the White 
 Mountain 250 toifes. Suppoling then 
 the height of the lake Leman or Geneva 
 above the level of the fea to be juftly 
 calculated by M. Fatio at 426 toifes, the 
 abfolute height of the White Mountain: 
 will be i 6 y 6 toifes ; that is to fay, up- 
 wards of 500 toifes higher than the pike 
 of Teneriffe, which has palled for the 
 highefl mountain of Europe*. The 
 
 White 
 
 * Father Feuillee, a Minim, in his manufcript. 
 voyage to the Canaries, makes the height of the 
 mercury on the- top of the pike of Mount Tene— 
 liffe about' fe vert teen inches- one line 3 this-, 
 L 6 
 
 com*- 
 
[ 228 ] 
 
 White Mountain is alfo feen from the 
 environs of Langresat fixty leagues di-. 
 
 fiance,, 
 
 compared with the heights of the mercury but 
 little different from it, which we have obferved on 
 the mountains of the Cordilleras of Peru, whofe 
 height was geometrically determined, makes that 
 of the pike 2150 toifes, being a more exadt mea- 
 fure than that refulting from the geometrical 
 menfuration of the faid father Feuillee, who con- 
 cluded it to be 2213 toifes, by a bafe too fhort 
 and ill diredled, and to the inclination of which 
 alfo he paid no regard. For the reft, although the . 
 higheft of mpun tains, as concluded upon by the. 
 barometer, are ufually fubjedt to great error, if 
 we have not a correfpondent obfefvation made at 
 the fame time on the level of the fea, in the 
 neareft place j yet -this circumftance is not ne- 
 ceflary in the neighbourhood of the Equino&ial 
 ime, where, the variations of the barometer are 
 very little : the greateft of them at Quito hardly 
 exceeding one. line, Thus in the neighbourhood of 
 the Equator, the height of the mountains may be 
 
 pretty. 
 
[ **9 ] 
 
 fence* * from whence they diftinguife 
 itsfummit covered with fnow above the 
 chain of Mount Jura. This prodigious- 
 height, which exceeds by 1200 toifes 
 that of the Canigou, ffcill comes not up 
 to that of the higheft mountains of the 
 Cordilleras among the Andes of Peru; 
 iince of thirteen, the height cf which P 
 have calculated, feven are higher than 
 the White Mountain, and Chimbora^ 
 in particular exceeds it by, 550, toifes,. 
 its height above, the level of the fea, 
 meafured geometrically, being 3220 
 toifes *. In fhort it is without contro- . 
 verfy the higheft mountain known, and ■. 
 probably the higheft in the whole world : 
 Its inacceffible part alone, from the foot 
 
 pretty . often. determined by the barometer alone, 
 to within ten or twelve toifes nearly. 
 
 * See Menfuration of the three, firft Degrees of 
 th§ Meridian, page 56, 
 
 of 
 
[ 2 30 ] 
 
 qF the perennial fnow where I encamped, 
 to the top, is 8oo toifes perpendicular 
 height 
 
 The melting of the fnows in fummer„ 
 being fufpended every night in the gor- 
 ges of the Alps, and renewed again every 
 day during the hours- in which the fun. 
 is. hotted:, gives occadon to very fan- 
 taftical appearances. A valley in whofe 
 
 ♦ By very accurate experiments on the height 
 of the barometer made at thesfame time at Geneva 
 and Turin, as alfo at Turin and Genoa, on the 
 fea fhore, and which were communicated to me 
 by M. I. A. de Luc, a citizen of Geneva, while 
 this memoir was printing, it appears, that the 
 height of the lake of Geneva, taken at the fur- 
 face of the Rhone, at its iffue out of the lake, is- 
 no more than 1124 feet, or not 18 toifes above 
 the level of the fea, inftead of its being 426, which 
 diminifhes the height of the White Mountain 238 
 toifes. 
 
 deptk 
 
. [ 23 £ I 
 
 depth the eye is loft, covered with rough 
 pieces of ice, refembling waves, and the. 
 whole furface of this fea again con- 
 gealed, and interfedled here and there 
 with deep crevices, the nolle of a fub- 
 terranean torrent which fupports this 
 enormous mafs, and changes the ap- 
 pearance as well as level of it from day 
 to day j all thefe effedls wrought by 
 changes that are almoft fudden, and 
 varioully combined of heat and cold,, 
 can fcaree be feen any where elfe in fo 
 eminent a degree : they form together a 
 very lingular fpedtacle, worthy the cu- 
 riofity of naturalifts, and calculated to 
 furnilh new obfervations., Scheuchzer, 
 in his Iter Alpinnm i gives us a defcrip- 
 tion of the ice-valleys of Swilferland,. 
 which is the name they bellow on thofe 
 immenfe maffes of ice ; but it appears 
 that the ice-valleys of Savoy are very 
 different from them. The moll cele- 
 brated 
 
[ 2 3 2 T 
 
 brated and mod: curious of thefe lad is; 
 at three days journey from Geneva, to- 
 wards the fources of the. Arve, at the foot' 
 of the White Mountain. The way to 
 it is through the valley of ‘Chamogny. 
 
 I was on the point of quitting Geneva, 
 when I. was informed of thefe particu- 
 lars : the tour demands at lead eight 
 days j it requires alfo preparations and con-, 
 veniences with which I was unprovided,., 
 and cannot be undertaken by one perlon 
 only. Some Englishmen performed it . 
 in 1741, but without any mathematical, 
 indrument. M. Jallabert fhowed me a. 
 fhort relation of their journey, printed ; 
 without the name of the author, and 
 calculated, rather to excite than fatisfy 
 curio.fity-. 
 
 This is not a place for me to tedify, 
 my acknowledgements for the favour-, 
 able reception which I met with from , 
 
 all . 
 
[ 2 33 ] 
 
 all the minifters of France in the feveral 
 courts of Italy where I made any flay, 
 and the marks of kindnefs with which 
 I was honoured by many of the car- 
 dinals at Rome : but the obligations I 
 owe to the count de Stainville, ambaf- 
 fador then from France to his Holinefs, 
 and the lead of which was that I redded 
 with him near a whole year $ permit 
 me not to defer my publick acknow- 
 ledgements for the fame. 
 
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 Page 1 1 3, in dead of the gentlemen cf 
 the faculty read naturalifts *. 
 
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