Here I found a good deal of soil either washed down from the surface or resulting from the decomposition of the rock, though oddly enough in it nothing grew.

I directed them to dig.

After a while to my astonishment there appeared a corner of a great worked stone quite unlike that of the crater, indeed it seemed to me to be a marble.
Further examination showed that this block was most beautifully carved in bas-relief, apparently with a design of leaves and flowers.

In the disturbed soil also I picked up a life-sized marble hand of a woman exquisitely finished and apparently broken from a statue that might have been the work of one of the great Greek sculptors.

Moreover, on the third finger of this hand was a representation of a ring whereof, unfortunately, the bezel had been destroyed.
I put the hand in my pocket, but as darkness was coming on, I could not pursue the research and disinter the block.