2QO HISTORY OF GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY 



Babbage in 1834 has proved a reference work of permanent 

 value. Lyell used it freely for his discussion of the subject 

 in his Principles. Continental authors of repute, Hoffmann 

 (1833), Scacchi (1849), also accepted the explanation of alter- 

 nating movements, and the Serapeum became a recognised 

 example in the text-books of "instantaneous" change of level. 



Antonio Niccolini made observations for several decades, 

 and wrote, between 1838 and 1846, a series of papers in which 

 he contended that the submersion of the Serapeum had not 

 been due to any movement of the land, but to a rise in the 

 water-level of the ocean. Professor Suess has arrived at the 

 same conclusion as Niccolini; he points out that the changes 

 of level at Pozzuoli were limited to the area of the Phlegrean 

 volcanic cones, and argues that after a slow rise of the water- 

 level throughout many centuries, there came during, or 

 immediately after, the eruption which formed Monte Nuove 

 (1538), a sudden lowering of the water-level, so that the 

 temple ruins were once more fully exposed. 



Other cases of instantaneous uprise have been reported from 

 the western coast of South America. The first account 

 appeared in a letter from a lady, Mrs. Maria Graham, to the 

 Geological Society of London. The letter relates how, after 

 the Valparaiso earthquake in November 1822, a long strip of 

 the coast of Chili rose three or four feet above the sea-level. 

 The German traveller, Poppig, heard confirmatory evidence 

 from the fishermen of the district when he visited the Bay of 

 Concon in 1827. Charles Darwin and Captain Fitzroy 

 witnessed, in 1835, a violent earthquake in Chili, and they 

 reported local elevations of eight or nine feet along disloca- 

 tions that formed in the district of Concepcion and Valdivia. 

 Darwin also observed raised beaches and terraces at various 

 heights on the coasts of Chili, some of them 1,500 feet above 

 sea-level, and he came to the conclusion that sudden eleva- 

 tions of land had followed the earthquakes so frequently 

 associated with volcanic activity in that neighbourhood. Upon 

 the basis of his direct observations in Chili, Darwin founded 

 his bold theory of the uprise of continents and mountain- 

 systems by successive sudden elevations due to volcanic 

 forces. 



Ever since oscillations of level have been observed, there 

 have been differences of opinion regarding the cause or causes. 

 Strabo doubted as little in the elevation of islands, mountains, 



