became removed, the sea-water percolated the bank universally, at the seaward side, it could no longer be kept out from the building, and the place would have been abandoned as untenable.
The water of the sea would then stand permanently at a level with the highest line of testaceous perforations of the limestone columns, say about 20 feet above the level of the present floor, assuming that the general level of La Starza was then about 8 feet under what it now is, and that the floor was originally founded 12 feet below the level.
The channels or ducts that had before brought the seawater to the baths would also bring the young testacea, and preserve sufficient change for their healthy existence. If, subsequently, the land bearing the so-called temple upon it, were gradually elevated about 8 feet, resting at about its present level, we have sufficient to account for the phenomena observed, without having recourse to, several successive depressions and elevations.
Elevations are common, and obviously part of the established cosmos of the earth's surface, but depressions, due to subterraneous forces, appear exceptional and rare, and especially doubtful, close to volcanic vents. Land-slips and aqueous erosion, marine and of every other sort, appear the established agents for depression of surface, acting in antagonism to the former. Indeed, proofs seem wanting, of any such thing as recurrent oscillation of level, of any known tract of land within the historic period, traceable in both directions of movement, to subterraneous agency.
To the view here advanced as offering the simplest and most probable solution of the Serapis problem, it may be
