POMPEIANA. 199

although in many instances but faint, of
the school from which they sprung.

If the whole of the plain below Pompeii
be alluvial, which there is every reason to
believe, the city must have originally been
placed upon a promontory of lava, ad-
vancing into the sea.

Upon the edge or brow of this pro-
montory we find one of those temples,
surrounded by a portico of columns, of
which neither the plan nor details are to be
found in any instance of early Koman anti-
quity: both the one and the other being
peculiar to Greece or her colonies.

The purest specimens of the Doric order
vary, from the early columns of Corinth
to the later of Athens, from four to six dia-
meters in height: but these, it should be re-
marked, were used in public edifices, where
grandeur of character and solidity of effect
were required. The remains of the above-
mentioned temple approach the earliest
proportions. In some instances, this order