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



Art. IX. — Physical Notices of the Bay of Naples. By 

 James D. Forbes, Esq. Communicated by the Author. 



No. V. — On the Temple of Jupiter Serapis at Pozzuoli, and 

 the phenomena which it exhibits. 



Fiscium et summa genus haesit ulmo> 

 Nota quse sedes fuerat columbis ; 

 £t superjecto pavidae natarunt 

 ^quore damae. 



Hob. Carm. I. 2. 



At the south-western base of the hill of the Solfatara, which 

 was the last object of our inquiry, and almost within the pre- 

 cincts of the small town of Pozzuoli, stand the remains of the 

 Temple of Jupiter Serapis, — remains which yield to few in the 

 variety of interest they are calculated to excite, and which 

 form an additional and striking example of the surprising, 

 and, if I may be excused the term, the eccentric mode in which 

 nature has sometimes pursued her course in the interesting re- 

 gion we have undertaken to illustrate. 



Most specimens of the architecture of the ancients are ob- 

 jects of interest merely in an antiquarian point of view. The 

 Forum of Rome, the Athenian Acropolis, or the Temples at 

 Paestum, have little else than their antiquity and their pictu- 

 resque beauty to recommend them to the intelligent observer.* 

 What then shall we say to a fragment of other times, which, 

 besides its mythological, antiquarian, and archaeological inter- 

 est, affords a subject of inquiry and speculation to the geolo- 

 gist, the cosmographer, the mineralogist, the lover of the pic> 

 turesque, the zoologist, and the hydrographer. Considering 

 the many claims, therefore, of this building to our attention, I 

 shall be excused, however briefly or imperfectly I may re- 

 count them, for devoting a whole paper to the object of so 

 much curious inquiry and original speculation. 



Of the early history of this beautiful monument we know 



* We may except the Coliseum^ which to the botanist affords a high 

 treat. Amidst its stupendous ruins no less than 261 species of planti? 

 have been observed, of which 148 are British. — See Williams's Travels in 

 Italy and Greece, vol. i. Appendix. 



