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



ward has every appearance of recent origin. * Farther, the 

 Temple of Jupiter Serapis at Pozzuoli, the phenomena of which 

 I intend to consider in my next paper, having been buried by 

 volcanic ashes in the middle ages, there seems no agent so 

 likely to have produced this effect as the crater of the Solfa- 

 tara. The Monte Nuovo, which is the only other plausible 

 source, being three times as distant^ and besides, not having 

 appeared till 1538, it seems not probable that all memory of 

 the temple should have been entirely lost after an age so ad- 

 vanced in civilization, till disinterred during the last century. 

 From all these reasons, therefore, it seems natural to adopt the 

 received opinion of authors, though certainly it has been 

 copied generally without examination, that the Solfatara was 

 in a state of eruption in the year 1198. -|- 



To this eruption, however, we can impute nothing more 

 than a discharge of scoriaceous matter, for the only true lava 

 stream has, as we have already mentioned, the true trachytic 

 character, and probably had its origin during the most re- 

 mote ages of tradition ; for various circumstances lead us to 

 believe that a state of inflammation then existed of a far more 

 serious nature than any which has occurred there since history 

 became a science. The Greek root of the name " Campus 

 Phlegraeus," which had its most legitimate application to this 

 spot, \ besides the appellation of Strabo already quoted, marks 

 the fact; but I would more particularly remark, that in this 

 spot, the scene was laid by Diodorus Siculus and other an- 

 cient writers, of one of the contests of Hercules with the giants,§ 



• For this remark I am indebted to a paper of Mr Scrope's on the vol- 

 canic district of Naples, which has appeared in the Geological Transactions, 

 (N. S. vol. ii. part 3.) which came to my hands since writing the last of 

 these notices. 1 am glad to find many of my ideas confirmed in this paper, 

 which also aflPords me the occasion of some new remarks which I shall in- 

 troduce in the progress of these Notices. 



•j* Mr Scrope in the paper just cited says 1 180 ; but this seems to be an 

 entire mistake. 



i Cluverius, Italia Antigua, fol. vol. ii. p. 1144. 

 § Tradunt Herculea prostrates mole gigantes 

 Tellurem injectam qua^rere et spiramine anhelo 

 Torreri late cainpos quotiesque minantur 

 Rurapere Compagene impositam expallescere coelum. 



Sil. Hal. xii. And Strabo, Lib. v. 



