OCR Text |
Show 458 TEMPLE OF JUPITER SEUAPIS. that plairt which lies betwe~n lake Avernus, the Monte Barba~o and the sea was raised a ltttle, and many cracks were made m it, from some of which issued water ; at the same time the sea immediately adjoining the plain dried up about two hund·red paces, so that the fish were left o·n the sand a prey to the inhabitants of Puzzuoli. At last, on the 29th of the same month, about two o'clock in the night, the earth opened, &c." Now both these accounts, written immediately after the birth of Monte Nuovo, agree in expressly stating, that the sea retired, and one mentions that its bottom was upraised. To this elevation we have already seen that Hooke, writing at the close of the seventeenth century, alludes as to a well known fact*. The preposterous theori~s, therefore, ~hat have been . advanced in order to dispense w1th the elevatiOn of the land, m the face of all this historical and physical evidence, are not entitled to a serious refutation. The flat land, when first upraised, must have been more extensive than now, for the sea encroaches somewhat rapidly, both to the north and south-east of Puz~uoli. The coast has of late years given way more than a foot m a twelvemonth, and I was assured by fishermen in the bay, that it has lost wound near Puzzuoli, to the extent of thirty feet, within their memory. It is, probably, this gradual encroachment which has led many authors to imagine that the level of the sea is slowly rising in the Bay of Baire, an opinion by no. means warranted by such circumstances. In the course of ttme the whole of the low land will, perhaps, be carried away, unle~s some earthquake shall remodify the surface of the country, before the waves reach the ancient coast-line; but the removal of this narrow tract will by no means restore the country to its former state, for the old tufaceous hills and the interstratified current of trachytic lava which has flowed from the Solfatara, must have participated in the movement of 1538; ~n~ these ~ill remain upraised even though the sea may regam Its ancient limits. In 1828 excavations were made below the marble pavement of the Temple of Serapis, and another costly pavement of mosaic was found, at the depth of five feet or more below the other. '"l'h~ existence of these two pavements at different levels seems clearly to imply some subsidence previously to all the "' Ante, p. 34. PERMANENCY OF 'filE LEVEL OF THE OCEAN, 459 changes already allud d t h' construct fl e o, w Ich had rendered it necessary to a new oor at a high I 1 B h circumstances bearinO' .er eve . ut to t ese and other to the revolutions al~e~~ the hist~ry of the Temple antecedently . Y explamed, we shall not refer at pre-sent, tr~stmg that future investi ations will . clearer light. g set them m a In concluding this s b' t . u ~ec ' we may observe that th · t mmable controversies to which th h ' f e m er- . . e p enomena o the Bay of Bai~ gave rise, have sprung from an extreme reluctance to admit that the land rather than the sea is b' I to rise and fall. Had it been assumed th stuth~eclt a tlernately . . ' a e eve of the ocean was mvanable, on the ground that no fl uc t uah·o ns h ave as yet been clearly established and that on the oth h d h . . ' ' er an , t e contments are Inconstant in their level as h b d ' as een emon-strated by the most unequivocal proofs again nd · f: h · f a agam, rom t e time o Strabo .to our own times, the appearances of the temple at Puzzuoh could never have been regard d · . 1 E 'f e as emg-mahca . ven I . ~ontemporary accounts had not distinctly attested the upraisi~g of the coast, this explanation should have been proposed m the first instance as the most t 1 · d f b · na ura , mstea . o emg now adopted unwillingly when all others have failed. To the s~rong preiudices still existing I·n d h b.1. f h .., regar to ht ed' mo I ~ty o ht e land, we may attribute the rarity of sue Isco;enes as ave been recently brought to light in the Bay of Ba1re and the Bay of Conception. A false theory it is well known m~y render us blind to facts, which are opposed to our prepossessiOns, or may c~n~ea~ from us their true import ~hen we behold them. But It Is time that the geologist should m some degree overcome those first and natural impressions which induced the poets of old to select the rock as the emblem of firmness-the sea as the image of inconstancy. Our modern poet, in a more philosophical spirit, saw in the latter " The im~ge of Eternity," and has finely contrasted the fleeting existence of the successive empires which have flourished and fallen, on the borders of the ocean, with its own unchanged stability. -- Their decay Has dried up realms to deserts :-not so thou, Unchangeable, save to thy willl waves' play: Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow · Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest n~w. CJULDE H.uww, Canto iv. |