``NOTHING WAS TO BE HEARD BUT THE SHRIEKS OF WOMEN, THE SCREAMS OF CHILDREN, AND THE CRIES OF MEN!''

      The story of the people of Lot in the Sodom and Gomorah, is somehow similar to that of POMPEII and HERCULANIUM, that were buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius some two thousand years ago.

      Pompeii a beautiful flourishing city, a port and a popular resort, and ancient city of campania Italy, 14m southeast of NAPLE, and immediately southeast of mount vesuvius. Herculanium was also a very beautiful city of fine villas at its western base.

      Mount Vesuvius was about six miles southeast of NAPLES on the eastern shore of the BAY OF NAPLES. It was a richly cultivated mountain covered with very fertile vineyards and surrounded by cities and towns.

      On August 24, in the year 79 A.D., a series of earthquakes culminated in violent explosion. POMPEII was buried under firry cinders, smoking stones, and burning ashes. At HERCULONEUM, these falling substances mixed with water and hardened into porous rocks which covered the city to an average depth of 18 to 20 feet.

      One of the survived inhabitants of the town was named GAIUS PLINIUS, whom today is called PLINY THE YOUNGER. He was 18 years old when the volcanic Mount Vesuvius erupted and buried POMEII and HERCULONEUM, which were two of the most beautiful cities inthe Roman Empire.

      Some years later PLINY THE YOUNGER wrote his graphic account of the catastrophe in two letters to his friend TACITUS, the Roman Historian. In these letters is an ideal report by an observer of the calamity, and the second is a model account by an eye witness. It has all the dramatic elements that accompany disasters.

      The religious leaders felt that these cities were chosen for destruction because they had been centers of luxury and vice. (I MYSELF, PREDICTED THE FALL OF ABADAN & KHORAMSHAHR SEVERAL YEARS BEFORE, WHEN I MADE A SPEECH FOR A GREAT AUDIENCE, SEEING THE TOWNS A CENTER OF LUXURY & VICE. TRANSLATOR)

      Pliny himself believed that the end had come, and indeed in one sense it had, because untold number of people perished in a night.

      HERCULONEUM remained buried until 1709, and POMPEII, until 1748. Slowly over the years the cities have been excavated. A magnificent library, precious marble statues, luxurious villas, paintings still perfect in colour have been reclaimed from the layers of ashes and lava that preserved them. Even the dice that were being thrown, and the bread that was being baked on that fatal day have been brought to light, and so a disaster that wreaked death and destruction in bygone centuries has become the source of much of our knowledge of Roman life and art.