Geological Gleanings. 261 



4 Before Dicsearchia of the Tyrseni (Pozzuoli) there is water 

 boiling up in the sea, and for the sake of it an island made with 

 hands, so that not even this water is wasted, but serves people for 

 warm baths.' 



" May not this spring be the very one now existing behind the 

 Temple of Serapis? 



" Had the hot spring of Pausauias originally discharged itself 

 into the sea, it does not seem likely that it would have been used 

 at all ; but if its virtues had been long known to the inhabitants 

 of Pozzuoli, and a gradual encroachment of the sea, or rather a 

 depression of the land, deprived them of the benefit of the baths 

 to which they had become accustomed, what could be more natural 

 than that a small mound or island should be made by hand in 

 the shallow water, in order that the baths might be again avail- 

 able? 



" Pausanias does not indeed say that these baths were connected 

 with a temple of Serapis, but this is immaterial. 



" On this theory a number of carious questions present them- 

 selves. 



" Which is the pavement of the building existing at the time 

 of Pausanias? What, relatively to the floor as now seen, was the 

 level of the original building submerged in the sea ? Is it repre- 

 sented by the mosaic "pavement found five feet below the floor of 

 the temple ? If so, it would be important to examine the soil 

 between the two pavements, and to ascertain whether it appears 

 to warrant the supposition that it was a part of a mound construct- 

 ed artificially. 



" The intervention of the hand of man in filling up or raising 

 this spot of ground, may complicate most materially the solution 

 of the several changes of level. 



" It should be stated that, according to the general notion, 

 mosaic pavements were not in common use at Rome before the 

 time of Sylla — that is, about eighty years before Christ ; but it 

 does not follow that a mosaic pavement may not have been added 

 after that date to a building existing before it : so that the mosaic 

 pavement in question may have been part of the Temple of Serapis 

 mentioned in the " Lex Parieti faciundo." Pausanias lived in the 

 time of Hadrain, as has been already stated, and, according to 

 this view, the submergence of the first baths or temple must have 

 taken place between the time of Sylla and that date. We cannot,. 

 I presume, suppose that a mosaic pavement would be originally 

 laid under water. 



