Curiosities of Science. Ill 



SUCCESSIVE CHANGES OF THE TEMPLE OF SEEAPIS. 



The Temple of Serapis at Puzzuoli, near Naples, is per- 

 haps, of all the structures raised by the hands of man, the one 

 which affords most instruction to a geologist. It has not only 

 undergone a wonderful succession of changes in past time, but 

 is still undergoing changes of condition. This edifice was ex- 

 humed in 1750 from the eastern shore of the Bay of Baise, con- 

 sisting partly of strata containing marine shells with frag- 

 ments of pottery and sculpture, and partly of volcanic matter 

 of sub-aerial origin. Various theories were proposed in the last 

 century to explain the perforations and attached animals ob- 

 served on the middle zone of the three erect marble columns 

 until recently standing ; Goethe, among the rest, suggesting 

 that a lagoon had once existed in the vestibule of the temple, 

 filled during a temporary incursion of the sea with salt water, 

 and that marine mollusca and annelids flourished for years in 

 this lagoon at twelve feet or more above the sea-level. 



This hypothesis was advanced at a time when almost any 

 amount of fluctuation in the level of the sea was thought more 

 probable than the slightest alteration in the level of the solid 

 land. In 1807 the architect Niccolini observed that the pave- 

 ment of the temple was dry, except when a violent south wind 

 was blowing ; whereas, on revisiting the temple fifteen years 

 later, he found the pavement covered by salt water twice every- 

 day at high tide. From measurements made from 1822 to 

 1838, and thence to 1845, he inferred that the sea was gaining 

 annually upon the floor of the temple at the rate of about one- 

 third of an inch during the first period, and about three-fourths 

 of an inch during the second. Mr. Smith of Jordan Hill, from 

 his visits in 1819 and 1845, found an average rise of about an 

 inch annually, which was in accordance with visits made by 

 Mr. Babbage in 1828, and Professor James Forbes in 1826 and 

 1843. In 1852 Signor Scaecchi, at the request of Sir Charles 

 Lyell, compared the depth of water on the pavement with its 

 level taken by him in 1839, and found that it had gained only 

 4\ inches in thirteen years, and was not so deep as when MM. 

 Niccolini and Smith measured it in 1845 ; from which he in- 

 ferred that after 1845 the downward movement of the land 

 had ceased, and before 1852 had been converted into an up- 

 ward movement. 



Arago and others maintained that the surface on which the 

 temple stands has been depressed, has remained under the sea, 

 and has again been elevated. Russager, however, contends that 

 there is nothing in the vicinity of the temple, or in the temple 

 itself, to justify this bold hypothesis. Every thing leads to the 

 belief that the temple has remained unchanged in the position 



