488 THE LIFE OF JAMES D. FORUM. [CHAP. 



' Forbes' first effort in scientific literature, so far as I 

 have been able to discover, was written in his eighteenth 

 year. It took the shape of a lettef to the editor of the 

 " Edinburgh Journal of Science (182 8)," and was 

 dated from Rome, with the title " Bemarks on Mount 

 Vesuvius." It formed, however, merely the prelude to 

 a series of eight papers, entitled " Physical Notices of 

 the Bay of Naples," which were sent at intervals to the 

 same journal. 



'This series of papers is one of singular merit, con- 

 sidered as the work of so young a man. He describes 

 with considerable detail his personal explorations in the 

 volcanic districts, digesting at the same time the pub- 

 lished information on tlie subject, and presenting a 

 clear narrative of the physical features of that interest- 

 ing region. Of special excellence is the fifth paper of 

 the series, in which he enters learnedly into the history 

 of the Temple of Jupiter Serapis at Pozzuoli. After 

 enumerating the different hypotheses which had IM-CII 

 proposed in explanation of the remarkable geological 

 features of the ruin, he adopts and enforces that which 

 has since been universally acquiesced in, and has become 

 familiar from the writings of Sir Charles Lyell. He 

 shows very clearly that the evidence points to oscillation 

 of the land with respect to the level of the sea, and that 

 other proofs of the same fact are furnished by adjacent 

 parts of the Mediterranean shores. In his concluding 

 paper he offers a resume of the information he had been 

 able to gather relative to the formations of the volcanic 

 Neapolitan district. 



1 No one can read these, the earliest productions of the 

 late Principal, without recognizing in them evidence of 

 that scrupulous carefulness and caution which distin- 

 guished their writer from first to last. They show, too, 

 the pains which he always took to make himself 

 thoroughly acquainted with the literature of a subject 

 before venturing to write upon it himself. Nor was 

 his reading confined to his own language ; it extended 

 to the ancient and modern tongues in which the subjects 



