Page:Awful phenomena of nature -- burning mountains.pdf/15

 keys of doors, and two inscriptions, from which it appeared that the ancient city of Pompii formerly stood there.

In the year 1711, the duke di Belbofi, designing to build himself a villa on the sea-shore at Portici, had a mind to cover some of the ground-rooms with plaister. He knew that some of the inhabitants of Resina, in digging for a well, had found fragments of antique Greciale, marble, and therefore ordered the workmen to continue digging as deep as the water would permit, in order to get a sufficient quantity of this marble for his plaister. Scarce had they began their operations, when they found some beautiful statues, among which, was one of Hercules, in marble, and another thought to be a Cleopatra. Proceeding farther, they met with several columns of coloured alabaster, belonging to a temple of a circular form, adorned on the outside with twenty-four columns, the greatest part of which were of the yellow antique; the inside of the temple had the same number of columns, between which were statues of Grecian marble, and it was paved with the yellow antique. The statues were sent to Vienna by the duke di Belbofi, as a present to prince Eugene of Savoy. After this, all farther search was discontinued, for fear of getting into a dispute with the ministers of state.