, THE TEMPLE OP' SERAPIS. 11 



daily washed by the tide. Earthquakes had been repeatedly 

 remarked by the inhabitants, so that Darwin no longer doubted 

 concerning the cause which made the trees to fall, and the 

 store-house to be washed by the daily tide. 



On the columns of the temple of Serapis, near Puzzuoli, the 

 astonished naturalist sees holes scooped out by Pholades and 

 Lithodomas, twenty-four feet above the present level of the sea. 

 These animals are marine testacea, that have the power of 

 burying themselves in stone, and cannot live beyond the reach 

 of low- water. How then have they been able to scoop out those 

 hieroglyphic marks so far above the level of their usual abodes ? 

 for surely marble originally defective was never used for the 

 construction of so proud an edifice. Alternate depressions and 

 elevations of the soil afford us the only key to the enigma. 

 Earthquakes and oscillations, so frequent in that volcanic region, 

 must first have lowered the temple into the sea, where it was 

 acted upon by the sacrilegious molluscs, and then again their 

 upheaving powers must have raised it to its present elevation. 

 Thus, even the solid earth changes its features, and reminds 

 us of the mutability of all created things. 



There can be no doubt that, in consequence of the perpetual 

 increase of alluvial deposits, and of the volcanic processes I have 

 mentioned, the present boundaries of ocean must undergo great 

 alterations in the course of centuries, and the general level of 

 the sea must either rise or fall; but the evidence of history proves 

 to us that, for the last 2000 years at least, there has been no 

 notable change in this respect. 



The baths hewn out in the rocks of Alexandria, and the stones 

 of its harbour, have remained unaltered ever since the founda- 

 tion of the city by the Macedonian conqueror ; and the ancient 

 port of Marseilles shows no more signs of a change of level than the 

 old sea-walls of Cadiz. Thus, all the elevations and depressions 

 that have occurred in the bed of ocean, or along its margin, 

 and all the mud and sand that thousands of rivers continually 

 carry along with them into the sea, have left its general level 

 unaltered, at least within the historic ages. However great their 

 effects may appear to the eye that confines itself to local changes, 

 their influence, as far as the evidence of history reaches, has 

 been but slight, upon the immensity of the sea. 



Geodesical operations have proved that the level of the ocean, 



