/. C. Ward — Development of Land. 



13 





Fig. 2. Ideal form of the Italian Peninsula at tlie close 

 of tlie Eocene period. 



Towards the close of the Pliocene, volcanic activity began to show 

 itself along the western side of the island, north and south of the 

 present districts of Rome and Naples, and about the same time a 

 further upheaval took place, raising the recently-formed Pliocene 

 strata high and dry, and thus giving to the old land a framework of 

 new and comparatively flat country, and causing it to assume very 

 much its present outline, many of the peculiarities of which, however, 

 have been produced by denudation and minor oscillations of level 

 acting through Post-Pliocene and modern times. 



There is little question but what the first eruptions in the district 

 of which Naples is now the centre took place ere the final upheaval, 

 and the ashes showered forth fell in the surrounding sea and were 

 deposited in strata which now form the fertile Campagna Felice, 

 just as the ashes of Vesuvius have, for many centuries, from time to 

 time been falling into the waters of the Bay of Naples, where they 

 will have formed beds alternating and mixed up with purely marine 

 deposits. 



