the Columns of the Temple ofSerapis. 203 



is, besides, difficult to discover how the water, which was so 

 very rapidly rushing down through the crevices, did not carry 

 away with it the cinders and stones, but left them to accumulate 

 and raise the level of the shore? And this elevation was not 

 inconsiderable ; for the soil, according to the measures quoted, 

 anteriorly to the year 1538, must have sunk nearly to the ex- 

 tent of 22 hand-breadths under the real height : at the com- 

 mencement of the present century it was above that real heiorht, 

 to the extent of 2^ hand-breadths. The total rising then, in 1538, 

 could not be less than 24 hand-breadths, — a limit which it pro- 

 bably exceeded, since the desceqding movement, which is re- 

 marked in our own day, could not have commenced only of late 

 years. M. Capocci also examines whether the ground had 

 changed its level for some distance along the coast, and finds 

 that the uprising must have extended from the spot where 

 the ancient baths of mineral water had been re-established, as 

 far as the stoves of Nero. To the east of the baths, near 

 to Nisita, and more to the west than the stoves, near to Baia, 

 the ground seems to have maintained its level, or perhaps 

 even to have somewhat sunk. In truth, in different places 

 within these Hmits it is found that the water rises above the 

 ruins of ancient buildings,* particularly at Baia, near the temple 

 of Venus. Besides, we cannot here discover along the shore, at 

 any distance from the water's edge, the slightest trace of a 

 former water line, as may be seen in the intermediate space, 

 and chiefly from Puozzoli to the lake Lucrino. In this interme- 

 diate space, and exactly about 200 paces from the water's edoe, 

 the land presents, all along the road formed posteriorly to 1538, 

 a kind of projection, against which it would appear that the 

 waters had formerly beat. This projection, therefore, which 

 is not connected with the present shore by any gradual slope, in- 

 dicates a sudden change, and not a gradual displacement, in the 

 line of the coast. 



The fact reported by M. Capocci, that, since 1800, the sea 

 has appeared to subside 2^ hand-breadths in the neighbourhood 



* There are also at Puozzoli some buildings which are submerged ; but 

 here it is evidently the exception, whilst within the other limits it is gene- 

 rally the case. 



