TEMPLE OF JUPITER AT PUZZUOLI. 



107 



inscriptions, not traced by the Greeks or Komans, but by 

 some of the simplest forms of animal existence, which have 

 here left enduring records of the physical changes that have 



LlGN. 14.— REMAINS OF THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER SERAPIS, AT PUZZUOLI 



(From Mr. L yell's Principles of Geology. ) 



taken place on these shores, since man erected the temple 

 in honour of his imaginary gods. The surface of the columns, 

 the tallest of which is forty-two feet in height, is smooth 

 and uninjured to an elevation of about twelve feet from the 

 pedestal, where a band of perforations, nine feet wide, 

 made by marine boring mussels (modiola lithophaga), com- 

 mences ; and above this, that is, at the height of twenty-one 

 feet from the pedestal, these cavities disappear. The hollows, 

 many of which still contain shells, sand, and microscopic 

 shields, are of an elongated elliptical shape, and are so 

 numerous and deep, as to prove unquestionably that the 



