Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857.djvu/274

224  slope to seaward also, as though the whole mass stood upon a base of loose soft material that was gradually settling and going seaward from the effects of sublittoral erosion. This seems also to be the solution, of the instances of the Roman roads, under water between Pozzuoli and Baiæ, and the Lucrine Lake.

Moreover, if Serapis had been ever depressed to the extent required, then this so called marine mole must have been equally so; but it is quite obvious to an engineering eye that were the arches, upon the piers as now standing, depressed but a few feet more, so as to receive the full stroke of the waves in storms, or the entire impulse of the moving superficial column of the sea, they would have been overthrown long ago. They only stand because they never yet were wholly under water.

The general importance of questions of permanent elevation or depression, and their intimate 'connection with earthquake phenomena, will, I trust, be deemed sufficient ground for this digression, upon the much-discussed Temple of Serapis.