No. V. — Temple of Jupiter Serapis. 283 



probable to me, as that it was the effect of some sudden and 

 local change at that period, both from the extent of the 

 change, (sixteen feet,*) and that from the depth of water it 

 must have been placed in at the end of the twelfth century, 

 the inclosure of the temple in volcanic tufa must have been 

 referred to some earlier event than the eruption of the Solfa- 

 tara, and with no such are we acquainted so well fitted for 

 this purpose. Certain it is, however, that since the sixteenth 

 century the water has again continued to rise in the Bay of 

 Pozzuoli, and has gradually laid open those ruins covered 

 with soil (probably thrown from the Monte Nuovo) in the 

 days of Loffredo, and is at present making slow but constant 

 encroachments on the former shore. This action is precisely 

 the reverse of what happens in the Baltic, the water of which 

 is lowered four inches in a century, and probably depends on 

 some analogous cause ; but whether it arises from the motion 

 of the land, or from some of those internal agencies which un- 

 doubtedly may affect the level of confined seas, I shall not now 

 attempt to inquire.f 



It remains for me to endeavour to answer the objections 

 which have been urged against the theory of the elevation and 

 depression of the land, with that brevity which the length to 

 which this paper has already insensibly extended requires. 



1. The great argument raised in opposition to this opinion 

 is, that, had these apparent changes been owing to earthquakes, 

 the pavement would not now have been horizontal, nor the 

 pillars and the walls standing on their foundations. We ad- 

 mit that it is remarkable ; but, to make it a strong objection, 

 shows an oversight both in the consideration of the phenome- 

 na of such a species of earthquake, (being no more than a 

 volcanic protrusion,) and of the condition of the building at 



* Dr Daubeny, by following Gothe's most perverted and inconsistent 

 statements too closely, has given thirty feet as the extent of this change, 

 though almost on the same page he admits (which that author did not) 

 the depression of the present level of the temple below the sea, and accu- 

 rately states the height to which the marks of perforation on the pillars, 

 extend to be only sixteen feet. 



t It is well known that the Mediterranean is considerably higher than 

 the Red Sea. It is likewise a curious fact, that there are many feet of dif- 

 ference of level between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. 



