PLINY THE YOUNGER
Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, born Gaius Caecilius or Gaius Caecilius Cilo (61 – c. 113), better known as Pliny the Younger, was a lawyer, author, and magistrate of Ancient Rome. Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, helped raise and educate him. Both Pliny the Elder and Younger were witnesses to the eruption of Vesuvius on August 24, 79 AD, during which the former died.
HERCULANEUM,Italy,August 24, A.D 79
When Mount vesuvius blew its lid on August 24,it released an incredible amount of ash,pumice,and gas. With the addition of rain,the ash and pumice became like wet cement that hardened around the people of Pompeii.Their soft body parts decayed,and the ash and pumice became solid rock.The shapes of the bodies were preserved as hollows in the rock.
The ash cloud that spread over Pompeii missed Herculcneum,a coastal resort town. But something worse was waiting for people there. The town was blasted by a number of pyroclastic surges-avalanches of burning ash and gases that race down a volcano's slope at hurricane speeds. Eventually Herculaneum was buried under 65 feet (20 m) of debris-four or five times as much as what covered Pompeii.
Volcanic ash can cause tremendous harm to everything near it.But you may be suprised to find out that ash can have effects far,far away-effects that can last forever.
PASSY,France,1784
During several of the summer months of the year 1783,when the effect of the sun's rays to heat the earth in these northern regions should have been greater,there existed a constant fog over all Europe,and great part of North America.This fog was of a permanent nature;it was dry,and the rays of the sun seemed to have little effect towards dissipating it,as they easily do a moist fog,arising from water.They were indeed rendered so faint in passing through it,that when collected in the focus of a burning glass,they would scarce kindle brown paper.
This cause of this universal fog is not yet ascertained.Whether it was adventitious to [came from] this earth... or whether it was the vast quantity of smoke,long continuing;to issue during the summer ... from Iceland,which smoke might be spread by various winds,over the northern part of the world,is yet uncertain. The idea that a smoky cloud could block the sun's heat and cause cold and foggy weather was suggested by Benjamin Franklin. Scientists say he was probably referring to a volcano in Iceland named Laki.
GENEVA,Switzerland,Summer 1816
Geneva is a global city, a financial center, and worldwide center for diplomacy due to the presence of numerous international organizations, including the headquarters of many of the agencies of the United Nations and the Red Cross. Geneva is the city that hosts the highest number of international organizations in the world. It is also the place where the Geneva Conventions were signed, which chiefly concern the treatment of wartime non-combatants and prisoners of war.
Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, born Gaius Caecilius or Gaius Caecilius Cilo (61 – c. 113), better known as Pliny the Younger, was a lawyer, author, and magistrate of Ancient Rome. Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, helped raise and educate him. Both Pliny the Elder and Younger were witnesses to the eruption of Vesuvius on August 24, 79 AD, during which the former died.
Pliny wrote hundreds of letters, many of which still survive, that are of great historical value for the time period. Some are addressed to reigning emperors or to notables such as the historian Tacitus. Pliny served as an imperial magistrate under Trajan (reigned 98–117), and his letters to Trajan provide one of the few surviving records of the relationship between the imperial office and provincial governors.
Pliny was considered an honest and moderate man. He rose through a series of Imperial civil and military offices, the cursus honorum. He was a friend of the historian Tacitus and employed the biographer Suetonius on his staff. Pliny also came into contact with other well-known men of the period, including the philosophers Artemidorus and Euphrates during his time in Syria.
For two days beginning August 24,the city of pompeii (pom-PAY),Italy,was buried under tons of stones and ash as Mount Vesuvius erupted. The eruption claimed the lives of 3,000 peoples,including an admiral and statesman named Pliny (PLINN-ee) the Elder. His nephew,17-years-old Pliny the Younger,watched the disaster from the nearby town of Misenum and then fled. He wrote down details in two letters he sent to his friend Tactics,a historian. The letters have survived,and they form the oldest recorded eyewitness account of a volcanic eruption. These are excerpts from the letters of Pliny the Younger.HERCULANEUM,Italy,August 24, A.D 79
When Mount vesuvius blew its lid on August 24,it released an incredible amount of ash,pumice,and gas. With the addition of rain,the ash and pumice became like wet cement that hardened around the people of Pompeii.Their soft body parts decayed,and the ash and pumice became solid rock.The shapes of the bodies were preserved as hollows in the rock.
The ash cloud that spread over Pompeii missed Herculcneum,a coastal resort town. But something worse was waiting for people there. The town was blasted by a number of pyroclastic surges-avalanches of burning ash and gases that race down a volcano's slope at hurricane speeds. Eventually Herculaneum was buried under 65 feet (20 m) of debris-four or five times as much as what covered Pompeii.
Volcanic ash can cause tremendous harm to everything near it.But you may be suprised to find out that ash can have effects far,far away-effects that can last forever.
PASSY,France,1784
During several of the summer months of the year 1783,when the effect of the sun's rays to heat the earth in these northern regions should have been greater,there existed a constant fog over all Europe,and great part of North America.This fog was of a permanent nature;it was dry,and the rays of the sun seemed to have little effect towards dissipating it,as they easily do a moist fog,arising from water.They were indeed rendered so faint in passing through it,that when collected in the focus of a burning glass,they would scarce kindle brown paper.
This cause of this universal fog is not yet ascertained.Whether it was adventitious to [came from] this earth... or whether it was the vast quantity of smoke,long continuing;to issue during the summer ... from Iceland,which smoke might be spread by various winds,over the northern part of the world,is yet uncertain. The idea that a smoky cloud could block the sun's heat and cause cold and foggy weather was suggested by Benjamin Franklin. Scientists say he was probably referring to a volcano in Iceland named Laki.
GENEVA,Switzerland,Summer 1816
Geneva is a global city, a financial center, and worldwide center for diplomacy due to the presence of numerous international organizations, including the headquarters of many of the agencies of the United Nations and the Red Cross. Geneva is the city that hosts the highest number of international organizations in the world. It is also the place where the Geneva Conventions were signed, which chiefly concern the treatment of wartime non-combatants and prisoners of war.
Geneva was ranked as the world's ninth most important financial centre for competitiveness by the Global Financial Centres Index, ahead of Frankfurt, and third in Europe behind London and Zurich.A 2009 survey by Mercer found that Geneva has the third-highest quality of life of any city in the world (behind Vienna and Zurich for expatriates; it is narrowly outranked by Zurich). The city has been referred to as the world's most compact metropolis and the "Peace Capital". In 2009 and 2011, Geneva was ranked as, respectively, the fourth and fifth most expensive city in the world.
Mary Wollstonecraft shelley was 19 years old and vacationing with her husband on the shore of Lake Geneva.The summer weather,which had been beautiful,suddenly changed to fierce rains and unbelievable lighting storms. On the night of june 16,the weather made it impossible for the shelleys to return to their lodgings,so they spent the night with the poet Lord Byron at the villa he was renting. After reading aloud from a collection of ghost stories,Byron challenged his guests to write their own stories.
other got tired of the challenge,but Mary kept wring. She was further inspired by a discussion several evenings. Later about whether a scientist could produce life in a humanoid built from human parts. That night she had"a waking nightmare"and arrived at the basis of Frankenstein,the novel that gave rise to the modern monster story.
We owe the creation of this story to a volcano!Perhaps as strange as Frankenstein itself,the bad weather was most likely caused by fine volcanic dust that had drifted over the earth from the gigantic eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia.By the time the dust had been blowing for a year,the world's climate had changed significantly.It was know as the Year Without a Summer,and in the northeastern United states,1816 wasso cold people packed up and headed west.
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