This paper is intended to give an account of the more recent researches of the Italian antiquaries and geologists connected with the well-known temple of Jupiter Serapis at Pozzuoli, which have been verified in several particulars by the author, by personal inspection, and extended to other parts of the western coast of Italy, where traces of marine lithophagi have been found at a height, as alleged by Niccolini, of even 250 feet above the present sea-level.

The most interesting modern observations are those of Niccolini on the actual change of relative level of the sea and land, ascertained by a fixed gauge which he has observed frequently between 1823 and 1838. In that time the land appears to have risen through a height of 112 millimetres or 4½ inches; and this change has been progressively and not suddenly effected.