Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/633

 PLINY PLIOCENE 613 lets to take down his observations. At the solicitation of the mariners of Retina (now Resina), he went to their assistance, and com- manded the ships to be launched to save the inhabitants of other cities upon that coast. Proceeding to the very point of danger, he dictated observations upon the phenomena and attendant terrors of the scene. So close did he come to the mountain that a storm of pumice stone, pieces of burning rock, and hot cinders, which kept constantly falling thicker, rained upon the ships, while the sudden retreat of the sea left them in danger of falling aground. The steersman advised him to return ; but Pliny or- dered him to carry him to Pomponianus, who was at Stabise, whence he was about to set sail in the greatest consternation. Pliny, to quiet his apprehensions, ordered a bath, and partook of his supper with apparent unconcern. He then retired to rest and slept soundly ; but the court of the house was filling so fast with cinders, that he was aroused and joined his friends, who, tying pillows upon their heads to protect themselves from the storm of stones and cin- ders, fled to the fields. It was now day, but the profound darkness was relieved only by the light of the torches. They found the sea too tempestuous to embark, and Pliny lay down upon the sand. A strong smell of sulphur compelled the friends to retire ; but no sooner had Pliny's slaves raised him from his recum- bent position than he fell dead from suffoca- tion. Three days afterward his body was found, bearing no marks of violence. Pliny was one of the most industrious of writers, and was noted for the economical use of his time. He collected an enormous mass of information, and while he was procurator of Spain he was offered for his materials 400,000 sesterces by Largius Licinius. He bequeathed to his nephew 160 volumes of Electorum Commentarii. The only work of his extant is the Historia Na- turalis, in 37 books, which embraces astrono- my, meteorology, geography, mineralogy, zool- ogy, botany, and medicine, besides treating of painting and statuary. The number of au- thors quoted in this work is between 400 and 500, and the number of volumes about 2,000. There have been many editions of it, the first of which was published at Venice in 1469. Among the others are those of Hardouin (5 vols. 4to, Paris, 1685), Lemaire (10 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1827-'33), Panckoucke (20 vols., Pa- ris, 1829-'33), Sillig (5 vols. 12mo, Leipsic, 1831-'6), Detleffen (Berlin, 1866 et seq. and H. Kiel (Leipsic, 1870). An English trans- lation was published by Philemon Holland (London, 1601), and there is another by Dr. Bostock and H. T. Riley in Bonn's " Classical Library" (6 vols., London, 1855). II. The Tonnger (CAIUS PLINITJS CJECILIUS SECUNDUS), a Roman author, nephew of the preceding, born probably in Comum in A. D. 61 or 62, died about 116. He studied rhetoric at Rome under Nicetis Sacerdos and Quintilian. At the age of 14 he composed a Greek tragedy. In his 19th year he spoke frequently in the forum, and afterward was employed to plead causes before the court of the centumviri and the senate. After serving in Syria us a military tribune, he was made quaestor Caesaris, pretor about 93, consul in 100, and in 103 proprietor of the province of Pontica, where he remained nearly two years. He was also curator of the channel and banks of the Tiber, and attained the rank of senator. His only extant works are the Panegyricus, written upon his appoint- ment to the consulship, and noted for its ful- some praise of Trajan, and his Epistolce in ten books. The first nine books of the latter are addressed to various individuals, but the tenth, which is the most important, contains the cor- respondence between Pliny and Trajan, inclu- ding the celebrated letter in regard to the early Christians, in which he characterizes their re- ligion as a "perverse and extravagant super- stition," and the reply of the emperor, which shows him to have been the more tolerant man of the two. The first edition of the Epistolce is that of Venice (4to, 1*471), where also appeared the first of the Panegyricus and Epistolce to- gether (8vo, 1485). Among the best editions of both works are those of J. M. Gesner, revised by G. H. Schafer (Leipsic, 1805), which contains a life of Pliny by Cellarius, and of Gierig (2 vols. 8vo, Leipsic, 1806). The edition of the Epistolce by Cortius and Longolius (4to, Am- sterdam, 1734) is said to be the best. A life of Pliny, more elaborate than that of Cellarius, was written by Masson (8vo, Amsterdam, 1709). There have been two English translations of the Epistolce, one by Melmoth (1746), the other by Lord Orrery (1759). " Pliny's Letters," by the Rev. A. Church and the Rev. W. G. Brod- ripp, was published in Blackwood's "Ancient Classics" (Edinburgh and London, 1875). PLIOCENE, in geology, the upper of the three epochs of the tertiary or mammalian age. The term was introduced by Sir Charles Lyell, and is derived from the Greek irfaiuv, more, and Kaiv6s, recent, because more than half of the fossils found in it belong to existing species. The quaternary age, or age of man, is next above it. The pliocene epoch is divided into older and newer pliocene, the latter called also by Lyell pleistocene (Gr. Tr/lefoTof, most), be- cause nearly all the fossils in it belong to exist- ing species. The pliocene formation has been more carefully studied in England than any- where else, particularly the lower pliocene in Suffolk, which is the only place where it occurs on the island. It there covers the upper beds of the London clay, and its upper and lower divisions have received the local names of red crag and the coralline crag, each about 50 ft. thick. The red crag consists of beds of quartz- ose sand and gravel with a mixture of shells, the whole deposit being strongly ochreous. The fossils are chiefly mollusca, but there are also bones and teeth of large sharks, skates, and other fish, and the ear bones of ^ one or more true whales. The coralline crag is calca-