208 Sir C, Lyell, on the Changes of the Temple of Serapis, 



first from 1822 to 1838, and afterwards from 1838 to 1845 ; from 

 which he inferred that the sea was gaining annually upon the floor 

 of the temple, at the rate of about one-third of an inch during the 

 first period, and about three-fourths of an inch during the second. 

 Mr. Smith, of Jordan-hill, when he visited the temple in 1819, had 

 remarked that the pavement was then dry, but that certain channels 

 cut in it for draining oif the waters of a hot spring, were filled with 

 sea water. On his return, in 1845, he found the high-water mark to 

 be 28 inches above the pavement, which, allowing a slight deduc- 

 tion on account of the tide, exhibited an average rise of about an 

 inch annually. As these measurements are in accordance with 

 others, made by Mr. Babbage in 1828, and by Professor James 

 Forbes, in 1826 and 1843, Mr. Smith believes his own conclusion 

 to be nearest the truth, and attributes the difference between his 

 average and that obtained by Niccolini (especially in the first set 

 of measurements by the latter observer), to the rejection by the 

 Italian architect, of all the highest water-marks of each year, caus- 

 ing his mean to be below the true mean level of the sea. In 1852, 

 Signor Arcangelo Scacchi, at the request of Sir Charles Lyell, 

 visited the temple, and compared the depth of water on the pave- 

 ment with its level as previously ascertained by himself in 1 839, 

 and found, after making allowance for the tide at the two periods, 

 that the water had gained only 4^ inches in thirteen years, and was 

 not so deep as when measured by M.M. Niccolini and Smith, in 

 1845 ; from which he inferred, that after 1845, the downward move- 

 ment of the land had ceased, and before 1852, had been converted 

 into an upward movement. Since tliat period, no exact account of 

 the level of the water seems to have been taken, or at least none 

 which has been published. 



Sir Charles Lyell then called attention to the head of a statue, 

 lent to him for exhibition by Mr. W. R. Hamilton, and which Mr. 

 H. had purchased from a peasant at Puzzuoli, in the neighbourhood 

 of the temple. This head bears all the distinctive marks of the 

 Jupiter Serapis of the Vatican ; and, among others, a flat space is 

 seen on the crown, doubtless intended to receive the ornament, 

 called the modius, or bushel, an emblem of fertility, which adorns 

 the ancient representations of this deity. One side of the head is 

 uninjured, as if it had lain in mud or sand, while the other has 

 *' suffered a sea change," having been drilled by small annelids, and 

 covered with adhering serpulse, as if submerged for years in salt 

 water, like the three marble columns before mentioned. 



The speaker then alluded to an ancient mosaic pavement, found 

 at the time of his examination of the temple, in 1828, five feet 

 below the present floor, implying the existence of an older building 

 before the second temple was erected. The latter is ascertained by 

 inscriptions, found in the interior, to have been built at the close of 

 the second and beginning of the third centuries of the Christian era. 



A brief chronological sketch was then given of the series of 



