BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING. 
503 
certified by docuTnentary evidence. Originally that temple was, no doubt, built 
above the level of the sea, itij site th«n sank twelve feet, so as to submerge its 
columns in a fresh-water deposit, which protected them from future injury. 
The subsidence, however, continued, and there the sea swept over newly-formed 
marshy surface, covering the columns of Jupiter's Temple to a depth of nine feet 
more, and exposing them to the depredations of that destructive bivalve, the 
Lithodomus " of Cuvier, from which they have greatly suffered. At one period, 
then, they were sunk twenty-one feet below the sea level, leaving a little less 
than half their original height above it ; but then another change took place, and 
the flat shore where this temple stands gradually rose again, a document of the 
reign of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, referring to a grant of land at Pozznoli 
made to the University of that town, " where the sea is drying up," and another 
of Ferdinand's alone a little later, speaking of the same locale, as one " where the 
ground was dried up." Again, an earthquake that occurred in 1810 on the 
delta of the Indus, was followed by very extraordinary and permanent changes 
in the levels of the adjacent districts, the eastern channel of that river bounding 
the province of Ciitch suddenly deepening at Luckput from one to eighteen feet, 
and at the same time creating a large inland lake, whilst Sindree, above Luckput, 
together with its fort, gradually sunk below the newly created waters until it3 
angle towers alone appejired above their surface ; but in exchange for this 
depression, an elevation fifty miles long appeared rising from a previously flat 
plain at a distance of about five miles from Sindre, which the inhabitants very 
appropriately termed " Ullah Bund," or Mound of God. 
Perhaps, however, the most sti iking modern illustration of what has once taken 
place in many portions of England, may at this time be witnessed in the United 
States. In 1811 the valley reaching from the mouth of the Ohio to that of the 
St. Francis, 300 miles long, was much convulsed, after which several new lakes 
were formed ; the largest of these is one near New Madrid, in Missouri, and 
termed " the sunk country," from whose placid surface rise the trunks of innu- 
merable semi-submerged trees, all dead, and whitening in the wind previous to 
the final plunge they must all shortly make into that deadly element below, 
wherein bo many of their brothers have already sunk before them. It may be re- 
marked, however, that volcanic agency was the cause of the first subsidences spoken 
of, whereas no signs of such a power exist in the lowlands of Lincolnshire or on 
its coast. But neither are they to be found in that of the American sunk 
country ; nor do earthquakes usually leave any direct evidences of their mighty 
agency behind them, although they often have been connected with permanent 
changes of the earth's surface of a great and extraordinary character. Again, 
even some natives of Lincolnshire may say, " But wheu had we earthquakes ?" I 
will therefore instance a few. In 1048 there was a serious convulsion in that 
county; also another in 1117 that particularly affected the division of Holland, 
greatly endangering and injuring Croyland Abbey, portions of which, then just 
built, were with difficulty stayed up by vast timber props. In 1185 Lincoln was 
much damaged by an earthquake. In 1448 a violent shock was again felt in the 
southern parts of the country. In 1750 a shock was felt throughout its whole 
extent, and another in the IJourn district so late as the year 1792. It is not 
necessary to point to any instances of elevation of land in Lincolnshire as a 
counterpoise to the subsidence of others, for the purpose of corroborating this 
theory, which I have ventured to advance, because none was observable in the case 
of the Missisippi Valley and other examples ; but I am inclined to think that a 
slow upward movement has began to take place in large districts of Lincolnshire 
long ago, and that by means of carefully-conducted scientific observations, this 
will hereafter be certainly proved and accurately measured. The filling up of 
channels and estuaries of large size that formerly existed, and the very rapid 
growth of its coast, apparently indicate this, whilst the known gradual but 
continually increasing elevation of the Danish coast and parts of Norway, greatly 
strengthen such a supposition. Nor need such a hypothesis be considered 
extravagant ; there stands the fact of the existence of submarine forests. They 
must have acquired their present position through some convulsion of nature ; 
