[Letter to Editors]

Abstract

SOME years ago my attention was especially directed to the date of the latest eruptions in Auvergne, as usually supposed to be indicated by the appointment of the Rogation Days, A.D. 469, by Mamertus (rather than Mamercus), Bishop of Vienne. A reference to original authorities convinced me that there is no satisfactory evidence of anything beyond long-continued earthquakes of such severity as to drive the wealthier part of the population out of the city, and, as it would seem, the wild beasts into it. Much is said about fire, but the rhetorical and inflated expressions of those living nearest to the event may be applied to either volcanic or domestic conflagration; and there is great reason to believe that the latter only was intended, in the apparent absence of volcanic foci in the neighbourhood. These, according to Scrope's map, all lie at a considerable distance (if I recollect aright, twenty or thirty miles); and though it is of course possible that the site of some nearer outburst may have been hitherto unnoticed, the expressions used hardly warrant the trouble of any laborious search for it. Should any of the residents in the neighbourhood of Vienne be conversant with geology, they would be able to furnish decisive evidence on the subject. The original story is a curious one, but it has not lost in the telling.