118 POST-PLIOCENE FOKMATIONS. [Ch. X 



shown that man was an inhabitant of that part of the globe, while the 

 materials composing the present hills and plains of Campania were still 

 in the progress of deposition at the bottom of the sea ; whereas we 

 know that for nearly 8000 years, or from the times of the earliest Greek 

 colonists, no material revolution in the j^hysical g'^eography of that part 

 of Italy has occurred. 



In Ischia, a small island near Naples, composed in like manner oi 

 marine and volcanic formations. Dr. Philippi collected in the stratified 

 tuff and clay ninety-two species of shells of existing species. In the 

 centre of Ischia, the lofty hill called Epomeo, or San Nicola, is composed 

 of greenish indurated tuif, of a prodigious thickness, interstratified in 

 some parts with marl, and here and there with great beds of sohd lava. 

 Visconti ascertained by trigonometrical measurement that this mountain 

 was 2605 feet above the level of the sea. Not far from its summit, at 

 the height of about 2000 feet, as also near Moropano, a village only 100 

 feet lower, on the southern declivity of the mountain, I collected, in 

 1828, many shells of species now inhabiting the neighboring gulf. It 

 is clear, therefore, that the great mass of Epomeo was not only raised to 

 its present height, but was also formed beneath the w^aters, within the 

 post-pliocene period. 



It is a fact, however, of no small interest, that the fossil shells from 

 these modern tuffs of the volcanic regions surrounding the Bay of Baise, 

 although none of them extinct, indicate a slight want of correspondence 

 between the ancient fauna and that now inhabiting the Mediterranean. 

 Philippi informs us that when he and M. Scacchi had collected ninety- 

 nine species of them, he found that only one, Pecten medius, now living 

 in the Red Sea, was absent from the Mediterranean. Notwithstanding 

 this, he adds, " the condition of the sea when the tufaceous beds were 

 deposited must have been considerably different from its present state ; 

 for Tellina striata was then common, and is now rare ; Lucina spinosa 

 was both more abundant and grew to a larger size ; Lucina fragilis^ 

 now rare, and hardly measuring 6 lines, then attained the enormous 

 dimensions of 14 lines, and was extremely abundant ; and Ostrea la- 

 mellosa^ Broc, no longer met with near Naj^les, existed at that time, 

 and attained a size so large that one lower valve has been known to 

 measure 5 inches 9 lines in length, 4 inches in breadth, 1-1 inch in thick 

 ness, and weighed 20 J ounces."'^ 



There are other parts of Europe where no volcanic action manifests 

 itself at the surface, as at Naples, whether by the eruption of lava or by 

 earthquakes, and yet where the land and bed of the adjoining sea are 

 undergoing upheaval. The motion is so gradual as to be insensible to 

 the inhabitants, being only ascertainable by careful scientific measure- 

 ments compared after long intervals. Such an upward movement has 

 been proved to be in progress in Norway and Sweden throughout an 

 area about 1000 miles N. and S., and for an unknown distance E and 



* Geol. Quart. Journ. vol. ii. Memoirs, p. 15. 



