282 Mr Forbes's Physical Notices of the Bay of Naples. 



years before, one might have fished from the supposed site of 

 the villa, (one of the classical criteria of its position,) since at 

 that period that flat land called La Starza was actually covered 

 by the sea. This invaluable testimony, which, as far as I know, 

 has never been applied to the theory of the temple of Serapis, 

 (for De Jorio, though he was acquainted with it, seems to have 

 strangely neglected its bearing,) gives us an epoch for our 

 calculations, which I think will be definitive. Fifty years pre- 

 vious to 1580 brings us to 1530, or just eight years anterior 

 to the tremendous explosion of the Monte Nuovo. Not a 

 doubt can remain that the upheaving of the ground by this 

 awful catastrophe caused the apparent sinking of the level of 

 the sea. Pursuing the chronology backwards, we come to the 

 next important phenomenon in 1488, when the great earth- 

 quake which desolated Pozzuoli points to the most natural 

 possible epoch for the lowering of the temple to such a depth, 

 that the Mytili worked at 16 feet above the present level of 

 the Mediterranean, and for a period of fifty years exactly. But 

 as we have seen that the temple had been previously buried 

 by volcanic matter, (which, forming a bed within the temple, 

 prevented the attack of the Mytili on the lower part of the 

 columns,) there just remains the paroxysm which we have al- 

 ready pointed out on other grounds, as the most probable — 

 namely, the eruption of the Solfatara in 1198. 



Fmirthly^ I may very briefly add, that the opinion of Mr 

 Playfair, that the shores of the Mediterranean are slowly sink- 

 ing, is rather confirmed by an attentive consideration of the 

 phenomena already detailed, though I confess I think his in- 

 duction proceeds on too few and imperfect facts, especially in 

 a country which is so liable to extraneous and contrary parox- 

 ysmal elevations. We have seen that the lowering of the sea- 

 line certainly took place suddenly in the beginning of the six- 

 teenth century, and, according with the striking phenomenon 

 of a volcanic protrusion, so well as to leave no doubt of the 

 identity of the cause. This, however, is the only direct coin- 

 cidence of which we are informed ; and, instead of the height 

 of the water in the fifteenth century being owing to any sud- 

 den action, it may have been the result of a continued depres- 

 sion of the land. I confess, however, this does not appear so 



