Page:Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man.djvu/63

Rh fossil human remains were found by Count Pourtalis. They consisted of jaws and teeth, with some bones of the foot.

I have shown, in the Principles of Geology, where the recent changes of the earth illustrative of geology are described at length, that the deposits accumulated at the bottom of lakes and seas within the last 4000 or 5000 years can neither be insignificant in volume or extent. They lie hidden, for the most part, from our sight; but we have opportunities of examining them at certain points where newly-gained land in the deltas of rivers has been cut through during floods, or where coral reefs are growing rapidly, or where the bed of a sea or lake has been heaved up by subterranean movements and laid dry.

As examples of such changes of level by which marine deposits of the recent period have become accessible to human observation, I have adduced the strata near Naples in which the Temple of Serapis at Pozzuoli was entombed. These upraised strata, the highest of which are about twenty-five feet above the level of the sea, form a terrace skirting the eastern shore of the Bay of Baiæ. They consist partly of clay, partly of volcanic matter, and contain fragments of sculpture, pottery, and the remains of buildings, together with great numbers of shells, retaining in part their colour, and of the same species as those now inhabiting the neighbouring sea. Their emergence can be proved to have taken place since the beginning of the sixteenth century.

In the same work, as an example of a fresh-water deposit of the recent period, I have described certain strata in Cashmere, a country where violent earthquakes, attended by