When Mount Vesuvius erupted cataclysmically in the summer of A.D. 79, the nearby Roman town of Pompeii was buried under several feet of ash and rock. The ruined city remained frozen in time until it was discovered by a surveying engineer in 1748
Because it helps inventors protect their designs from getting copied or stolen
The above passage indicates that the setting is a place where experiments are performed. This statement, "<span>who likewise showed me a treatise he had written concerning the malleability of fire", reveals the place in which the characters are working in. The situation has something to do that is related to experimenting of some sort. </span>
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