EARTHQUAKES--_continued_.
Earthquake of Java, 1772--Truncation of a lofty cone--St. Domingo,
1770--Lisbon, 1755--Great area over which the shocks
extended--Retreat of the sea--Proposed explanations--Conception Bay,
1750--Permanent elevation--Peru, 1746--Java, 1699--Rivers obstructed
by landslips--Subsidence in Sicily, 1693--Moluccas, 1693--Jamaica,
1692--Large tracts engulfed--Portion of Port Royal sunk--Amount of
change in the last 150 years--Elevation and subsidence of land in
Bay of Baiae--Evidence of the same afforded by the Temple of Serapis.
In the preceding chapters we have considered a small part only of those
earthquakes which have occurred during the last seventy years, of which
accurate and authentic descriptions happen to have been recorded. In
examining those of earlier date, we find their number so great that
allusion can be made to a few only respecting which information of
peculiar geological interest has been obtained.
_Java_, 1772.--_Truncation of a lofty cone._--In the year 1772,
Papandayang, formerly one of the loftiest volcanoes in the island of
Java, was in eruption. Before all the inhabitants on the declivities of
the mountain could save themselves by flight, the ground began to give
way, and a great part of the volcano fell in and disappeared. It is
estimated that an extent of ground of the mountain itself and its
immediate environs, fifteen miles long and full six broad, was by this
commotion swallowed up in the bowels of the earth. Forty villages were
destroyed, some being engulfed and some covered by the substances thrown
out on this occasion, and 2957 of the inhabitants perished. A
proportionate number of cattle were also killed, and most of the
plantations of cotton, indigo, and coffee in the adjacent districts were
buried under the volcanic matter. This catastrophe appears to have
resembled, although on a grander scale, that of the ancient Vesuvius in
the year 79. The cone was reduced in height from 9000 to about 5000
feet; and, as vapors still escape from the crater on its summit, a new
cone may one day rise out of the ruins of the ancient mountain, as the
modern Vesuvius has risen from the remains of Somma.[675]
_St. Domingo_, 1770.--During a tremendous earthquake which destroyed a
great part of St. Domingo, innumerable fissures were caused throughout
the island, from which mephitic vapors emanated and produced an
epidemic. _Hot springs_ burst forth in many places where there had been
no water before; but after a time they ceased to flow.[676]
In a previous earthquake, in November, 1751, a violent shock destroyed
the capital, Port au Prince, and part of the coast, twenty leagues in
length, sank down, and has ever since formed a bay of the sea.[677]
_Hindostan_, 1762.--The town of Chittagong, in Bengal, was violently
shaken by an earthquake, on the 2d of April, 1762, the earth opening in
many places, and throwing up water and mud of a sulphureous smell. At a
place called Bardavan, a large river was dried up; and at Bar Charra,
near the sea, a tract of ground sunk down, and 200 people, with all
their cattle, were lost. It is said, that sixty square miles of the
Chittagong coast suddenly and permanently subsided during this
earthquake, and that Ces-lung-Toom, one of the Mug mountains, entirely
disappeared, and another sank so low, that its summit only remained
visible. Four hills are also described as having been variously rent
asunder, leaving open chasms from thirty to sixty feet in width. Towns
which subsided several cubits, were overflowed with water; among others,
Deep Gong, which was submerged to the depth of seven cubits. Two
volcanoes are said to have opened in the Secta Cunda hills. The shock
was also felt at Calcutta.[678] While the Chittagong coast was sinking,
a corresponding rise of the ground took place at the island of Ramree,
and at Cheduba (see Map, fig. 39, p. 351).[679]
_Lisbon_, 1755.--In no part of the volcanic region of southern Europe
has so tremendous an earthquake occurred in modern times, as that which
began on the 1st of November, 1755, at Lisbon. A sound of thunder was
heard underground, and immediately afterwards a violent shock threw down
the greater part of that city. In the course of about six minutes, sixty
thousand persons perished. The sea first retired and laid the bar dry;
it then rolled in, rising fifty feet or more above its ordinary level.
The mountains of Arrabida, Estrella, Julio, Marvan, and Cintra, being
some of the largest in Portugal, were impetuously shaken, as it were,
from their very foundations; and some of them opened at their summits,
which were split and rent in a wonderful manner, huge masses of them
being thrown down into the subjacent valleys.[680] Flames are related to
have issued from these mountains, which are supposed to have been
electric; they are also said to have smoked; but vast clouds of dust may
have given rise to this appearance.
The area over which this convulsion extended is very remarkable. It has
been computed, says Humboldt,[681] that on the 1st November, 1755, a
portion of the earth's surface four times greater than the extent of
Europe was simultaneously shaken. The shock was felt in the Alps, and on
the coast of Sweden, in small inland lakes on the shores of the Baltic,
in Thuringia, and in the flat country of northern Germany. The thermal
springs of Toplitz dried up, and again returned, inundating every thing
with water discolored by ochre. In the islands of Antigua, Barbadoes,
and Martinique in the West Indies, where the tide usually rises little
more than two feet, it suddenly rose above twenty feet, the water being
discolored and of an inky blackness. The movement was also sensible in
the great lakes of Canada. At Algiers and Fez, in the north of Africa,
the agitation of the earth was as violent as in Spain and Portugal; and
at the distance of eight leagues from Morocco, a village with the
inhabitants, to the number of about 8000 or 10,000 persons, are said to
have been swallowed up; the earth soon afterwards closing over them.
_Subsidence of the quay._--Among other extraordinary events related to
have occurred at Lisbon during the catastrophe was the subsidence of a
new quay, built entirely of marble at an immense expense. A great
concourse of people had collected there for safety, as a spot where they
might be beyond the reach of falling ruins; but suddenly the quay sank
down with all the people on it, and not one of the dead bodies ever
floated to the surface. A great number of boats and small vessels
anchored near it, all full of people, were swallowed up, as in a
whirlpool.[682] No fragments of these wrecks ever rose again to the
surface, and the water in the place where the quay had stood is stated,
in many accounts, to be unfathomable; but Whitehurst says he ascertained
it to be one hundred fathoms.[683]
Circumstantial as are the contemporary narratives, I learn from a
correspondent, Mr. F. Freeman, in 1841, that no part of the Tagus was
then more than thirty feet deep at high tide, and an examination of the
position of the new quay, and the memorials preserved of the time and
manner in which it was built, rendered the statement of so great a
subsidence in 1755 quite unintelligible. Perhaps a deep narrow chasm,
such as was before described in Calabria (p. 481), opened and closed
again in the bed of the Tagus, after swallowing up some incumbent
buildings and vessels. We have already seen that such openings may
collapse after the shock suddenly, or, in places where the strata are of
soft and yielding materials, very gradually. According to the
observations made at Lisbon, in 1837, by Mr. Sharpe, the destroying
effects of this earthquake were confined to the tertiary strata, and
were most violent on the blue clay, on which the lower part of the city
is constructed. Not a building, he says, on the secondary limestone or
the basalt was injured.[684]
_Shocks felt at sea._--The shock was felt at sea, on the deck of a ship
to the west of Lisbon, and produced very much the same sensation as on
dry land. Off St. Lucar, the captain of the ship Nancy felt his vessel
so violently shaken, that he thought she had struck the ground; but, on
heaving the lead, found a great depth of water. Captain Clark, from
Denia, in latitude 36 degrees 24 minutes N., between nine and ten in the
morning, had his ship shaken and strained as if she had struck upon a
rock, so that the seams of the deck opened, and the compass was
overturned in the binnacle. Another ship, forty leagues west of St.
Vincent, experienced so violent a concussion, that the men were thrown a
foot and a half perpendicularly up from the deck.
_Rate at which the movement travelled._--The agitation of lakes, rivers,
and springs, in Great Britain, was remarkable. At Loch Lomond, in
Scotland, for example, the water, without, the least apparent cause,
rose against its banks, and then subsided below its usual level. The
greatest perpendicular height of this swell was two feet four inches. It
is said that the movement of this earthquake was undulatory, and that it
travelled at the rate of twenty miles a minute, its velocity being
calculated by the intervals between the time when the first shock was
felt at Lisbon, and its time of occurrence at other distant places.[685]
_Great wave and retreat of the sea._--A great wave swept over the coast
of Spain, and is said to have been sixty feet high at Cadiz. At Tangier,
in Africa, it rose and fell eighteen times on the coast. At Funchal, in
Madeira, it rose full fifteen feet perpendicular above high-water mark,
although the tide, which ebbs and flows there seven feet, was then at
half-ebb. Besides entering the city, and committing great havoc, it
overflowed other seaports in the island. At Kinsale, in Ireland, a body
of water rushed into the harbor, whirled round several vessels, and
poured into the market-place.
It was before stated that the sea first retired at Lisbon; and this
retreat of the ocean from the shore, at the commencement of an
earthquake, and its subsequent return in a violent wave, is a common
occurrence. In order to account for the phenomenon, Michell imagined a
subsidence at the bottom of the sea, from the giving way of the roof of
some cavity in consequence of a vacuum produced by the condensation of
steam. Such condensation, he observes, might be the first effect of the
introduction of a large body of water into fissures and cavities already
filled with steam, before there has been sufficient time for the heat of
the incandescent lava to turn so large a supply of water into steam,
which being soon accomplished causes a greater explosion.
Another proposed explanation is, the sudden rise of the land, which
would cause the sea to abandon immediately the ancient line of coast;
and if the shore, after being thus heaved up, should fall again to its
original level, the ocean would return. This theory, however, will not
account for the facts observed during the Lisbon earthquake; for the
retreat preceded the wave, not only on the coast of Portugal, but also
at the island of Madeira, and several other places. If the upheaving of
the coast of Portugal had caused the retreat, the motion of the waters,
when propagated to Madeira, would have produced a wave previous to the
retreat. Nor could the motion of the waters at Madeira have been caused
by a different local earthquake; for the shock travelled from Lisbon to
Madeira in two hours, which agrees with the time which it required to
reach other places equally distant.[686]
The following is another solution of the problem, which has been
offered:--Suppose a portion of the bed of the sea to be suddenly
upheaved; the first effect will be to raise over the elevated part a
body of water, the momentum of which will carry it much above the level
it will afterwards assume, causing a draught or receding of the water
from the neighboring coasts, followed immediately by the return of the
displaced water, which will also be impelled by its momentum much
farther and higher on the coast than its former level.[687]
Mr. Darwin, when alluding to similar waves on the coast of Chili, states
his opinion, that "the whole phenomenon is due to a common undulation in
the water, proceeding from a line or point of disturbance some little
way distant. If the waves," he says, "sent off from the paddles of a
steam-vessel be watched breaking on the sloping shore of a still river,
the water will be seen first to retire two or three feet, and then to
return in little breakers, precisely analogous to those consequent on an
earthquake." He also adds, that "the earthquake-wave occurs some time
after the shock, the water at first retiring both from the shores of the
mainland and of outlying islands, and then returning in mountainous
breakers. Their size is modified by the form of the neighboring coast;
for it is ascertained in South America, that places situated at the
head of shoaling bays have suffered most, whereas towns like Valparaiso,
seated close on the border of a profound ocean, have never been
inundated, though severely shaken by earthquakes."[688]
More recently (February, 1846), Mr. Mallet, in his memoir above cited
(p. 475), has endeavored to bring to bear on this difficult subject the
more advanced knowledge obtained of late years respecting the true
theory of waves. He conceives that when the origin of the shock is
beneath the deep ocean, one wave is propagated through the land, and
another moving with inferior velocity is formed on the surface of the
ocean. This last rolls in upon the land long after the earth-wave has
arrived and spent itself. However irreconcilable it may be to our common
notions of solid bodies, to imagine them capable of transmitting, with
such extreme velocity, motions analogous to tidal waves, it seems
nevertheless certain that such undulations are produced, and it is
supposed that when the shock passes a given point, each particle of the
solid earth describes an ellipse in space. The facility with which all
the particles of a solid mass can be made to vibrate may be illustrated,
says Gay Lussac, by many familiar examples. If we apply the ear to one
end of a long wooden beam, and listen attentively when the other end is
struck by a pin's head, we hear the shock distinctly; which shows that
every fibre throughout the whole length has been made to vibrate. The
rattling of carriages on the pavement shakes the largest edifices; and
in the quarries underneath some quarters in Paris, it is found that the
movement is communicated through a considerable thickness of rock.[689]
The great sea-wave originating directly over the centre of disturbance
is propagated, as Michell correctly stated, in every direction, like the
circle upon a pond when a pebble is dropped into it, the different rates
at which it moves depending (as he also suggested) on variations in the
depth of the water. This wave of the sea, says Mr. Mallet, is raised by
the impulse of the shock immediately below it, which in great
earthquakes lifts up the ground two or three feet perpendicularly. The
velocity of the shock, or earth-wave, is greater because it "depends
upon a function of the elasticity of the crust of the earth, whereas the
velocity of the sea-wave depends upon a function of the depth of the
sea."
"Although the shock in its passage under the deep ocean gives no trace
of its progress, it no sooner gets into soundings or shallow water, than
it gives rise to another and smaller wave of the sea. It carries, as it
were, upon its back, this lesser aqueous undulation; a long narrow ridge
of water which corresponds in form and velocity to itself, being pushed
up by the partial elevation of the bottom. It is this small wave, called
technically the 'forced sea-wave,' which communicates the
earthquake-shock to ships at sea, as if they had struck upon a rock. It
breaks upon a coast at the same moment that the shock reaches it, and
sometimes it may cause an apparent slight recession from the shore,
followed by its flowing up somewhat higher than the usual tide mark:
this will happen where the beach is very sloping, as is usual where the
sea is shallow, for then the velocity of the low flat earth-wave is
such, that it slips as it were, from under the undulation in the fluid
above. It does this at the moment of reaching the beach, which it
elevates by a vertical height equal to its own, and as instantly lets
drop again to its former level."
"While the shock propagated through the solid earth has thus travelled
with extra rapidity to the land, the great sea-wave has been following
at a slower pace, though advancing at the rate of several miles in a
minute. It consists, in the deep ocean, of a long low swell of enormous
volume, having an equal slope before and behind, and that so gentle that
it might pass under a ship without being noticed. But when it reaches
the edge of soundings, its front slope, like that of a tidal wave under
similar circumstances, becomes short and steep, while its rear slope is
long and gentle. If there be water of some depth close into shore, this
great wave may roll in long after the shock, and do little damage; but
if the shore be shelving, there will be first a retreat of the water,
and then the wave will break upon the beach and roll in far upon the
land."[690]
The various opinions which have been offered by Michell and later
writers, respecting the remote causes of earthquake shocks in the
interior of the earth, will more properly be discussed in the
thirty-second chapter.
_Chili_, 1751.--On the 24th of May, 1751, the ancient town of
Conception, otherwise called Penco, was totally destroyed by an
earthquake, and the sea rolled over it. (See plan of the bay, fig. 70,
p. 455.) The ancient port was rendered entirely useless, and the
inhabitants built another town about ten miles from the sea-coast, in
order to be beyond the reach of similar inundations. At the same time, a
colony recently settled on the sea-shore of Juan Fernandez was almost
entirely overwhelmed by a wave which broke upon the shore.
It has been already stated, that in 1835, or eighty-four years after the
destruction of Penco, the same coast was overwhelmed by a similar flood
from the sea during an earthquake; and it is also known that twenty-one
years before (or in 1730), a like wave rolled over these fated shores,
in which many of the inhabitants perished. A series of similar
catastrophes has also been tracked back as far as the year 1590,[691]
beyond which we have no memorials save those of oral tradition. Molina,
who has recorded the customs and legends of the aborigines, tells us,
that the Araucanian Indians, a tribe inhabiting the country between the
Andes and the Pacific, including the part now called Chili, "had among
them a tradition of a great deluge, in which only a few persons were
saved, who took refuge upon a high mountain called Thegtheg, "the
thundering," which had three points. Whenever a violent earthquake
occurs, these people fly for safety to the mountains, assigning as a
reason, that they are fearful, after the shock, that the sea will again
return and deluge the world.[692]
Notwithstanding the tendency of writers in his day to refer all
traditionary inundations to one remote period, Molina remarks that this
flood of the Araucanians "was probably very different from that of
Noah." We have, indeed, no means of conjecturing how long this same
tribe had flourished in Chili, but we can scarcely doubt, that if its
experience reached back even for three or four centuries, several
inroads of the ocean must have occurred within that period. But the
memory of a succession of physical events, similar in kind, though
distinct in time, can never be preserved by a people destitute of
written annals. Before two or three generations have passed away all
dates are forgotten, and even the events themselves, unless they have
given origin to some customs, or religious rites and ceremonies.
Oftentimes the incidents of many different earthquakes and floods become
blended together in the same narrative; and in such cases the single
catastrophe is described in terms so exaggerated, or is so disguised by
mythological fictions, as to be utterly valueless to the antiquary or
philosopher.
_Proofs of elevation of twenty-four feet._--During a late survey of
Conception Bay, Captain Beechey and Sir E. Belcher discovered that the
ancient harbor, which formerly admitted all large merchant vessels which
went round the Cape, is now occupied by a reef of sandstone, certain
points of which project above the sea at low water, the greater part
being very shallow. A tract of a mile and a half in length, where,
according to the report of the inhabitants, the water was formerly four
or five fathoms deep, is now a shoal; consisting, as our hydrographers
found, of hard sandstone, so that it cannot be supposed to have been
formed by recent deposits of the river Biobio, an arm of which carries
down loose micaceous sand into the same bay.
It is impossible at this distance of time to affirm that the bed of the
sea was uplifted at once to the height of twenty-four feet, during the
single earthquake of 1751, because other movements may have occurred
subsequently; but it is said, that ever since the shock of 1751, no
vessels have been able to approach within a mile and a half of the
ancient port of Penco. (See Map, p. 455.) In proof of the former
elevation of the coast near Penco our surveyors found above high-water
mark an enormous bed of shells of the same species as those now living
in the bay, filled with micaceous sand like that which the Biobio now
conveys to the bay. These shells, as well as others, which cover the
adjoining hills of mica-schist to the height of several hundred feet,
have lately been examined by experienced conchologists in London, and
identified with those taken at the same time in a living state from the
bay and its neighborhood.[693]
Ulloa, therefore, was perfectly correct in his statement that, at
various heights above the sea between Talcahuano and Conception, "mines
were found of various sorts of shells used for lime of the very same
kinds as those found in the adjoining sea." Among them he mentions the
great mussel called Choros, and two others which he describes. Some of
these, he says, are entire, and others broken; they occur at the bottom
of the sea, in four, six, ten, or twelve fathom water, where they adhere
to a sea-plant called Cochayuyo. They are taken in dredges, and have no
resemblance to those found on the shore or in shallow water; yet beds of
them occur at various heights on the hills. "I was the more pleased with
the sight," he adds, "as it appeared to me a convincing proof of the
universality of the deluge, although I am not ignorant that some have
attributed their position to other causes."[694] It has, however, been
ascertained that the foundation of the Castle of Penco was so low in
1835, or at so inconsiderable an elevation above the highest spring
tides, as to discountenance the idea of any permanent upheaval in modern
times, on the site of that ancient port; but no exact measurements or
levellings appear as yet to have been made to determine this point,
which is the more worthy of investigation, because it may throw some
light on an opinion often promulgated of late years, that there is a
tendency in the Chilian coast, after each upheaval, to sink gradually
and return towards its former position.
_Peru_, 1746.--Peru was visited, on the 28th of October, 1746, by a
tremendous earthquake. In the first twenty-four hours, two hundred
shocks were experienced. The ocean twice retired and returned
impetuously upon the land: Lima was destroyed, and part of the coast
near Callao was converted into a bay: four other harbors, among which
were Cavalla and Guanape, shared the same fate. There were twenty-three
ships and vessels, great and small, in the harbor of Callao, of which
nineteen were sunk; and the other four, among which was a frigate called
St. Fermin, were carried by the force of the waves to a great distance
up the country, and left on dry ground at a considerable height above
the sea. The number of inhabitants in this city amounted to four
thousand. Two hundred only escaped, twenty-two of whom were saved on a
small fragment of the fort of Vera Cruz, which remained as the only
memorial of the town after this dreadful inundation. Other portions of
its site were completely covered with heaps of sand and gravel.
A volcano in Lucanas burst forth the same night, and such quantities of
water descended from the cone that the whole country was overflowed; and
in the mountain near Pataz, called Conversiones de Caxamarquilla,
three other volcanoes burst out, and frightful torrents of water swept
down their sides.[695]
There are several records of prior convulsions in Peru, accompanied by
similar inroads in the sea, one of which happened fifty-nine years
before (in 1687), when the ocean, according to Ulloa, first retired and
then returned in a mountainous wave, overwhelming Callao and its
environs, with the miserable inhabitants.[696] This same wave, according
to Lionel Wafer, carried ships a league into the country, and drowned
man and beast for fifty leagues along the shore.[697] Inundations of
still earlier dates are carefully recorded by Ulloa, Wafer, Acosta, and
various writers, who describe them as having expended their chief fury,
some on one part of the coast and some on another.
But all authentic accounts cease when we ascend to the era of the
conquest of Peru by the Spaniards. The ancient Peruvians, although far
removed from barbarism, were without written annals, and therefore
unable to preserve a distinct recollection of a long series of natural
events. They had, however, according to Antonio de Herrera, who, in the
beginning of the seventeenth century, investigated their antiquities, a
tradition, "that many years before the reign of the Incas, at a time
when the country was very populous, there happened a great flood; the
sea breaking out beyond its bounds, so that the land was covered with
water and all the people perished. To this the Guacas, inhabiting the
vale of Xausca, and the natives of Chiquito, in the province of Callao,
add that some persons remained in the hollows and caves of the highest
mountains, who again peopled the land. Others of the mountain people
affirm that all perished in the deluge, only six persons being saved on
a float, from whom descended all the inhabitants of that country."[698]
On the mainland near Lima, and on the neighboring island of San Lorenzo,
Mr. Darwin found proofs that the ancient bed of the sea had been raised
to the height of more than eighty feet above water within the human
epoch, strata having been discovered at that altitude, containing pieces
of cotton thread and plaited rush, together with sea-weed and marine
shells.[699] The same author learnt from Mr. Gill, a civil engineer,
that he discovered in the interior near Lima, between Casma and Huaraz,
the dried-up channel of a large river, sometimes worn through solid
rock, which, instead of continually ascending towards its source, has,
in one place, a steep downward slope in that direction, for a ridge or
line of hills has been uplifted directly across the bed of the stream,
which is now arched. By these changes the water has been turned into
some other course; and a district, once fertile, and still covered with
ruins, and bearing the marks of ancient cultivation, has been converted
into a desert.[700]
_Java_, 1699.--On the 5th of January, 1699, a terrible earthquake
visited Java, and no less than 208 considerable shocks were reckoned.
Many houses in Batavia were overturned, and the flame and noise of a
volcanic eruption were seen and heard in that city, which were
afterwards found to proceed from Mount Salek,[701] a volcano six days'
journey distant. Next morning the Batavian river, which has its rise
from that mountain, became very high and muddy, and brought down
abundance of bushes and trees, half burnt. The channel of the river
being stopped up, the water overflowed the country round the gardens
about the town, and some of the streets, so that fishes lay dead in
them. All the fish in the river, except the carps, were killed by the
mud and turbid water. A great number of drowned buffaloes, tigers,
rhinoceroses, deer, apes, and other wild beasts, were brought down by
the current; and, "notwithstanding," observes one of the writers, "that
a crocodile is amphibious, several of them were found dead among the
rest."[702]
It is stated that seven hills bounding the river sank down; by which is
merely meant, as by similar expressions in the description of the
Calabrian earthquakes, seven great landslips. These hills, descending
some from one side of the valley and some from the other, filled the
channel, and the waters then finding their way under the mass, flowed
out thick and muddy. The Tangaran river was also dammed up by nine
hills, and in its channel were large quantities of drift trees. Seven of
its tributaries also are said to have been "covered up with earth." A
high tract of forest land, between the two great rivers before
mentioned, is described as having been changed into an open country,
destitute of trees, the surface being spread over with fine red clay.
This part of the account may, perhaps, merely refer to the sliding down
of woody tracts into the valleys, as happened to so many extensive
vineyards and olive-grounds in Calabria, in 1783. The close packing of
large trees in the Batavian river is represented as very remarkable, and
it attests in a striking manner the destruction of soil bordering the
valleys which had been caused by floods and landslips.[703]
_Quito_, 1698.--In Quito, on the 19th of July, 1698, during an
earthquake, a great part of the crater and summit of the volcano
Carguairazo fell in, and a stream of water and mud issued from the
broken sides of the hill.[704]
_Sicily_, 1693.--Shocks of earthquakes spread over all Sicily in 1693,
and on the 11th of January the city of Catania and forty-nine other
places were levelled to the ground, and about one hundred thousand
people killed. The bottom of the sea, says Vicentino Bonajutus, sank
down considerably, both in ports, inclosed bays, and open parts of the
coast, and water bubbled up along the shores. Numerous long fissures of
various breadths were caused, which threw out sulphurous water; and one
of them, in the plain of Catania (the delta of the Simeto), at the
distance of four miles from the sea, sent forth water as salt as the
sea. The stone buildings of a street in the city of Noto, for the length
of half a mile, sank into the ground, and remained hanging on one side.
In another street, an opening large enough to swallow a man and horse
appeared.[705]
_Moluccas_, 1693.--The small Isle of Sorea, which consists of one great
volcano, was in eruption in the year 1693. Different parts of the cone
fell, one after the other, into a deep crater, until almost half the
space of the island was converted into a fiery lake. Most of the
inhabitants fled to Banda; but great pieces of the mountain continued to
fall down, so that the lake of lava became wider; and finally the whole
population was compelled to emigrate. It is stated that, in proportion
as the burning lake increased in size, the earthquakes were less
vehement.[706]
_Jamaica_, 1692.--In the year 1692, the island of Jamaica was visited by
a violent earthquake; the ground swelled and heaved like a rolling sea,
and was traversed by numerous cracks, two or three hundred of which were
often seen at a time, opening and then closing rapidly again. Many
people were swallowed up in these rents; some the earth caught by the
middle, and squeezed to death; the heads of others only appeared above
ground; and some were first engulfed, and then cast up again with great
quantities of water. Such was the devastation, that even in Port Royal,
then the capital, where more houses are said to have been left standing
than in the whole island besides, three-quarters of the buildings,
together with the ground they stood on, sank down with their inhabitants
entirely under water.
_Subsidence in the harbor._--The large storehouses on the harbor side
subsided, so as to be twenty-four, thirty-six, and forty-eight feet
under water; yet many of them appear to have remained standing, for it
is stated that, after the earthquake, the mast-heads of several ships
wrecked in the harbor, together with the chimney-tops of houses, were
just seen projecting above the waves. A tract of land round the town,
about a thousand acres in extent, sank down in less than one minute,
during the first shock, and the sea immediately rolled in. The Swan
frigate, which was repairing in the wharf, was driven over the tops of
many buildings, and then thrown upon one of the roofs, through which it
broke. The breadth of one of the streets is said to have been doubled by
the earthquake.
According to Sir H. De la Beche, the part of Port Royal described as
having sunk was built upon newly formed land, consisting of sand, in
which piles had been driven; and the _settlement_ of this loose sand,
charged with the weight of heavy houses, may, he suggests, have given
rise to the subsidence alluded to.[707]
There have undoubtedly been instances in Calabria and elsewhere of
slides of land on which the houses have still remained standing; and it
is possible that such may have been the case at Port Royal. The fact at
least of submergence is unquestionable, for I was informed by the late
Admiral Sir Charles Hamilton that he frequently saw the submerged houses
of Port Royal in the year 1780, in that part of the harbor which lies
between the town and the usual anchorage of men-of-war. Bryan Edwards
also says, in his history of the West Indies, that in 1793 the _ruins_
were visible in clear weather from the boats which sailed over
them.[708] Lastly, Lieutenant B. Jeffery, R. N., tells me that, being
engaged in a survey between the years 1824 and 1835, he repeatedly
visited the site in question, where the depth of the water is from four
to six fathoms, and whenever there was but little wind perceived
distinct traces of houses. He saw these more clearly when he used the
instrument called the "diver's eye," which is let down below the ripple
of the wave.[709]
At several thousand places in Jamaica the earth is related to have
opened. On the north of the island several plantations, with their
inhabitants, were swallowed up, and a lake appeared in their place,
covering above a thousand acres, which afterwards dried up, leaving
nothing but sand and gravel, without the least sign that there had ever
been a house or a tree there. Several tenements at Yallows were buried
under land-slips; and one plantation was removed half a mile from its
place, the crops continuing to grow upon it uninjured. Between Spanish
Town and Sixteen-mile Walk, the high and perpendicular cliffs bounding
the river fell in, stopped the passage of the river and flooded the
latter place for nine days, so that the people "concluded it had been
sunk as Port Royal was." But the flood at length subsided, for the river
had found some new passage at a great distance.
_Mountains shattered._--The Blue and other of the highest mountains are
declared to have been strangely torn and rent. They appeared shattered
and half-naked, no longer affording a fine green prospect, as before,
but stripped of their woods and natural verdure. The rivers on these
mountains first ceased to flow for about twenty-four hours, and then
brought down into the sea, at Port Royal and other places, several
hundred thousand tons of timber, which looked like floating islands on
the ocean. The trees were in general barked, most of their branches
having been torn off in the descent. It is particularly remarked in
this, as in the narratives of so many earthquakes, that fish were taken
in great numbers on the coast during the shocks. The correspondents of
Sir Hans Sloane, who collected with care the accounts of eye-witnesses
of the catastrophe, refer constantly to _subsidences_, and some supposed
the whole of Jamaica to have sunk down.[710]
_Reflections on the amount of change in the last one hundred and sixty
years._--I have now only enumerated some few of the earthquakes of the
last 160 years, respecting which facts illustrative of geological
inquiries are on record. Even if my limits permitted, it would be an
unprofitable task to examine all the obscure and ambiguous narratives
of similar events of earlier epochs; although, if the places were now
examined by geologists well practised in the art of interpreting the
monuments of physical changes, many events which have happened within
the historical era might doubtless be still determined with precision.
It must not be imagined that, in the above sketch of the occurrences of
a short period, I have given an account of all, or even the greater
part, of the mutations which the earth has undergone by the agency of
subterranean movements. Thus, for example, the earthquake of Aleppo, in
the present century, and of Syria, in the middle of the eighteenth,
would doubtless have afforded numerous phenomena, of great geological
importance, had those catastrophes been described by scientific
observers. The shocks in Syria in 1759, were protracted for three
months, throughout a space of ten thousand square leagues: an area
compared to which that of the Calabrian earthquake in 1783 was
insignificant. Accon, Saphat, Balbeck, Damascus, Sidon, Tripoli, and
many other places, were almost entirely levelled to the ground. Many
thousands of the inhabitants perished in each; and, in the valley of
Balbeck alone, 20,000 men are said to have been victims to the
convulsion. In the absence of scientific accounts, it would be as
irrelevant to our present purpose to enter into a detailed account of
such calamities, as to follow the track of an invading army, to
enumerate the cities burnt or rased to the ground, and reckon the number
of individuals who perished by famine or the sword.
_Deficiency of historical records._--If such, then, be the amount of
ascertained changes in the last 160 years, notwithstanding the extreme
deficiency of our records during that brief period, how important must
we presume the physical revolutions to have been in the course of thirty
or forty centuries, during which some countries habitually convulsed by
earthquakes have been peopled by civilized nations! Towns engulfed
during one earthquake may, by repeated shocks, have sunk to great depths
beneath the surface, while the ruins remain as imperishable as the
hardest rocks in which they are inclosed. Buildings and cities,
submerged, for a time, beneath seas or lakes, and covered with
sedimentary deposits, must, in some places, have been re-elevated to
considerable heights above the level of the ocean. The signs of these
events have, probably, been rendered visible by subsequent mutations, as
by the encroachments of the sea upon the coast, by deep excavations made
by torrents and rivers, by the opening of new ravines, and chasms, and
other effects of natural agents, so active in districts agitated by
subterranean movements.
If it be asked why, if such wonderful monuments exist, so few have
hitherto been brought to light, we reply--because they have not been
searched for. In order to rescue from oblivion the memorials of former
occurrences, the inquirer must know what he may reasonably expect to
discover, and under what peculiar local circumstances. He must be
acquainted with the action and effect of physical causes, in order to
recognize, explain, and describe correctly the phenomena when they
present themselves.
The best known of the great volcanic regions, of which the boundaries
were sketched in the twenty-second chapter, is that which includes
Southern Europe, Northern Africa, and Central Asia; yet nearly the
whole, even of this region, must be laid down, in a geological map, as
"Terra Incognita." Even Calabria may be regarded as unexplored, as also
Spain, Portugal, the Barbary States, the Ionian Isles, Asia Minor,
Cyprus, Syria, and the countries between the Caspian and Black seas. We
are, in truth, beginning to obtain some insight into one small spot of
that great zone of volcanic disturbance, the district around Naples; a
tract by no means remarkable for the violence of the earthquakes which
have convulsed it.
If, in this part of Campania, we are enabled to establish that
considerable changes in the relative level of land and sea have taken
place since the Christian era, it is all that we could have expected;
and it is to recent antiquarian and geological research, not to history,
that we are principally indebted for the information. I shall now
proceed to lay before the reader some of the results of modern
investigations in the Bay of Baiae and the adjoining coast.
PROOFS OF ELEVATION AND SUBSIDENCE IN THE BAY OF BAIAE.
[Illustration: Fig. 86.
Ground plan of the coast of the Bay of Baiae, in the environs of
Puzzuoli.]
_Temple of Jupiter Serapis._--This celebrated monument of antiquity, a
representation of which is given in the frontispiece,[711] affords in
itself alone, unequivocal evidence that the relative level of land and
sea has changed twice at Puzzuoli since the Christian era; and each
movement, both of elevation and subsidence, has exceeded twenty feet.
Before examining these proofs, I may observe, that a geological
examination of the coast of Baiae, both on the north and south of
Puzzuoli, establishes, in the most satisfactory manner, an elevation, at
no remote period, of more than twenty feet, and, at one point, of more
than thirty feet; and the evidence of this change would have been
complete, if even the temple had, to this day, remained undiscovered.
_Coast south of Puzzuoli._--If we coast along the shore from Naples to
Puzzuoli, we find, on approaching the latter place, that the lofty and
precipitous cliffs of indurated tuff, resembling that of which Naples is
built, retire slightly from the sea; and that a low level tract of
fertile land, of a very different aspect, intervenes between the present
sea-beach and what was evidently the ancient line of coast.
The inland cliff may be seen opposite the small island of Nisida, about
two miles and a half southeast of Puzzuoli (see Map, fig. 40, p. 361),
where, at the height of thirty-two feet above the level of the sea, Mr.
Babbage observed an ancient mark, such as might have been worn by the
waves; and, upon farther examination, discovered that, along that line,
the face of the perpendicular rock, consisting of very hard tuff, was
covered with barnacles (_Balanus sulcatus_, Lamk.), and drilled by
boring testacea. Some of the hollows of the lithodomi contained the
shells; while others were filled with the valves of a species of
Area.[712] Nearer to Puzzuoli, the inland cliff is eighty feet high, and
as perpendicular as if it was still undermined by the waves. At its
base, a new deposit, constituting the fertile tract above alluded to,
attains a height of about twenty feet above the sea; and, since it is
composed of regular sedimentary deposits, containing marine shells, its
position proves that, subsequently to its formation, there has been a
change of more than twenty feet in the relative level of land and sea.
[Illustration: Fig. 87.
_a_, Antiquities on hill S. E. of Puzzuoli (see ground plan, fig. 86).
_b_, Ancient cliff now inland.
_c_, Terrace composed of recent submarine deposit.]
The sea encroaches on these new incoherent strata; and as the soil is
valuable, a wall has been built for its protection; but when I visited
the spot in 1828, the waves had swept away part of this rampart, and
exposed to view a regular series of strata of tuff, more or less
argillaceous, alternating with beds of pumice and lapilli, and
containing great abundance of marine shells, of species now common on
this coast, and amongst them _Cardium rusticum_, _Ostrea edulis_, _Donax
trunculus_, Lamk., and others. The strata vary from about a foot to a
foot and a half in thickness, and one of them contains abundantly
remains of works of art, tiles, squares of mosaic pavement of different
colors, and small sculptured ornaments, perfectly uninjured.
Intermixed with these I collected some teeth of the pig and ox. These
fragments of building occur below as well as above strata containing
marine shells. Puzzuoli itself stands chiefly on a promontory of the
older tufaceous formation, which cuts off the new deposit, although I
detected a small patch of the latter in a garden under the town.
[Illustration: Fig. 88.
VIEW OF BAY OF BAIAE.
1. Puzzuoli. 2. Temple of Serapis. 3. Caligula's Bridge
4. Monte Barbaro. 5. Monte Nuovo. 6. Baths of Nero. 7. Baiae.
8. Castle of Baiae. 9. Bauli. 10. Cape Misenum. 11. Mount Epomeo in
Ischia. 12. South Part of Ischia.
]
From the town the ruins of a mole, called Caligula's Bridge, run out
into the sea (see fig. 88, p. 509).[713] This mole, which is believed to
be eighteen centuries old, consists of a number of piers and arches,
thirteen of which are now standing, and two others appear to have been
overthrown. Mr. Babbage found, on the sixth pier, perforations of
lithodomi four feet above the level of the sea; and, near the
termination of the mole on the last pier but one, marks of the same, ten
feet above the level of the sea, together with great numbers of balani
and flustra. The depth of the sea, at a very small distance from most of
the piers, is from thirty to fifty feet.
[Illustration: Fig. 89.
_a_, Remains of Cicero's villa, N. side of Puzzuoli.[714]
_b_, Ancient cliff now inland.
_c_, Terrace (called La Starza) composed of recent submarine deposits.
_d_, Temple of Serapis.
]
_Coast north of Puzzuoli._--If we then pass to the north of Puzzuoli,
and examine the coast between that town and Monte Nuovo, we find a
repetition of analogous phenomena. The sloping sides of Monte Barbaro
slant down within a short distance of the coast, and terminate in an
inland cliff of moderate elevation, to which the geologist perceives at
once that the sea must, at some former period, have extended. Between
this cliff and the sea is a low plain or terrace, called La Starza (_c_,
fig. 89), corresponding to that before described on the southeast of the
town; and as the sea encroaches rapidly, fresh sections of the strata
may readily be obtained, of which the annexed is an example.
Section on the shore north of the town of Puzzuoli:--
Ft. In.
1. Vegetable soil 1 0
2. Horizontal beds of pumice and scoriae, with broken fragments
of unrolled bricks, bones of animals, and marine shells 1 6
3. Beds of lapilli, containing abundance of marine shells,
principally _Cardium rusticum_, _Donax trunculus_, Lam.,
_Ostrea edulis_, _Triton cutaceum_, Lam., and
_Buccinum serratum_, Brocchi, the beds varying in
thickness from one to eighteen inches 10 0
4. Argillaceous tuff, containing bricks and fragments
of buildings not rounded by attrition. 1 6
The thickness of many of these beds varies greatly as we trace them
along the shore, and sometimes the whole group rises to a greater height
than at the point above described. The surface of the tract which they
compose appears to slope gently upwards towards the base of the old
cliffs.
Now, if such appearances presented themselves on the coast of England, a
geologist might endeavor to seek an explanation in some local change in
the set of the tides and currents: but there are scarce any tides in the
Mediterranean; and, to suppose the sea to have sunk generally from
twenty to twenty-five feet since the shores of Campania were covered
with sumptuous buildings is an hypothesis obviously untenable. The
observations, indeed, made during modern surveys on the moles and
cothons (docks) constructed by the ancients in various ports of the
Mediterranean, have proved that there has been no sensible variation of
level in that sea during the last two thousand years.[715]
Thus we arrive, without the aid of the celebrated temple, at the
conclusion, that the recent marine deposit at Puzzuoli was upraised in
modern times above the level of the sea, and that not only this change
of position, but the accumulation of the modern strata, was posterior to
the destruction of many edifices, of which they contain the imbedded
remains. If we next examine the evidence afforded by the temple itself,
it appears, from the most authentic accounts, that the three pillars now
standing erect continued, down to the middle of the last century, almost
buried in the new marine strata (_c_, fig. 89). The upper part of each
protruding several feet above the surface was concealed by bushes, and
had not attracted, until the year 1749, the notice of antiquaries; but,
when the soil was removed in 1750, they were seen to form part of the
remains of a splendid edifice, the pavement of which was still
preserved, and upon it lay a number of columns of African breccia and of
granite. The original plan of the building could be traced distinctly:
it was of a quadrangular form, seventy feet in diameter, and the roof
had been supported by forty-six noble columns, twenty-four of granite
and the rest of marble. The large court was surrounded by apartments,
supposed to have been used as bathing-rooms; for a thermal spring, still
used for medicinal purposes, issues just behind the building, and the
water of this spring appears to have been originally conveyed by a
marble duct, still extant, into the chambers, and then across the
pavement by a groove an inch or two deep, to a conduit made of Roman
brickwork, by which it gained the sea.
Many antiquaries have entered into elaborate discussions as to the deity
to which this edifice was consecrated. It is admitted that, among other
images found in excavating the ruins, there was one of the god Serapis;
and at Puzzuoli a marble column was dug up, on which was carved an
ancient inscription, of the date of the building of Rome 648 (or B. C.
105), entitled "Lex parieti faciundo." This inscription, written in
very obscure Latin, sets forth a contract, between the municipality of
the town, and a company of builders who undertook to keep in repair
certain public edifices, the Temple of Serapis being mentioned amongst
the rest, and described as being near or towards the sea, "mare vorsum."
Sir Edmund Head, after studying, in 1828, the topography and antiquities
of this district, and the Greek, Roman, and Italian writers on the
subject, informed me, that at Alexandria, on the Nile, the chief seat of
the worship of Serapis, there was a Serapeum of the same form as this
temple at Puzzuoli, and surrounded in like manner by chambers, in which
the devotees were accustomed to pass the night, in the hope of receiving
during sleep a revelation from the god, as to the nature and cure of
their diseases. Hence it was very natural that the priests of Serapis, a
pantheistic divinity, who, among other usurpations, had appropriated to
himself the attributes of Esculapius, should regard the hot spring as a
suitable appendage to the temple, although the original Serapeum of
Alexandria could boast no such medicinal waters. Signor Carelli[716] and
others, in objecting to these views, have insisted on the fact, that the
worship of Serapis, which we know prevailed at Rome in the days of
Catullus (in the first century before Christ), was prohibited by the
Roman Senate, during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius. But there is
little doubt that, during the reigns of that emperor's successors, the
shrines of the Egyptian god were again thronged by zealous votaries; and
in no place more so than at Puteoli (now Puzzuoli), one of the principal
marts for the produce of Alexandria.
Without entering farther into an inquiry which is not strictly
geological, I shall designate this valuable relic of antiquity by its
generally received name, and proceed to consider the memorials of
physical changes inscribed on the three standing columns in most legible
characters by the hand of Nature. (See Frontispiece.) These pillars,
which have been carved each out of a single block of marble, are forty
feet three inches and a half in height. A horizontal fissure nearly
intersects one of the columns; the other two are entire. They are all
slightly out of the perpendicular, inclining somewhat to the southwest,
that is, towards the sea.[717] Their surface is smooth and uninjured to
the height of about twelve feet above their pedestals. Above this is a
zone, about nine feet in height, where the marble has been pierced by a
species of marine perforating bivalve--_Lithodomus_, Cuv.[718] The holes
of these animals are pear-shaped, the external opening being minute, and
gradually increasing downwards. At the bottom of the cavities, many
shells are still found, notwithstanding the great numbers that have been
taken out by visitors; in many the valves of a species of arca, an
animal which conceals itself in small hollows, occur. The perforations
are so considerable in depth and size, that they manifest a
long-continued abode of the lithodomi in the columns, for, as the
inhabitant grows older and increases in size, it bores a larger cavity,
to correspond with the increased magnitude of its shell. We must,
consequently, infer a long-continued immersion of the pillars in
sea-water, at a time when the lower part was covered up and protected by
marine, fresh-water, and volcanic strata, afterwards to be described,
and by the rubbish of buildings; the highest part, at the same time,
projecting above the waters, and being consequently weathered, but not
materially injured. (See fig. 90, p. 514.)
On the pavement of the temple lie some columns of marble, which are also
perforated in certain parts; one, for example, to the length of eight
feet, while, for the length of four feet, it is uninjured. Several of
these broken columns are eaten into, not only on the exterior, but on
the cross fracture, and, on some of them, other marine animals (serpulae,
&c.) have fixed themselves.[719] All the granite pillars are untouched
by lithodomi. The platform of the temple, which is not perfectly even,
was, when I visited it in 1828, about one foot below high-water mark
(for there are small tides in the bay of Naples); and the sea, which was
only one hundred feet distant, soaked through the intervening soil. The
upper part of the perforations, therefore, were at least twenty-three
feet above high-water mark; and it is clear that the columns must have
continued for a long time in an erect position, immersed in salt water,
and then the submerged portion must have been upraised to the height of
about twenty-three feet above the level of the sea.
By excavations carried on in 1828, below the marble pavement on which
the columns stand, another costly pavement of mosaic was found, at the
depth of about five feet below the upper one (_a_, _b_, fig. 90). The
existence of these two pavements, at different levels, clearly implies
some subsidence previously to the building of the more modern temple
which had rendered it necessary to construct the new floor at a higher
level.
[Illustration: Fig. 90.
Temple of Serapis at its period of greatest depression.
_a b_, Ancient mosaic pavement.
_c c_, Dark marine incrustation.
_d d_, First filling up, shower of ashes.
_e e_, Freshwater calcareous deposit.
_f f_, Second filling up.
_A_, Stadium.
]
We have already seen (p. 512) that a temple of Serapis existed long
before the Christian era. The change of level just mentioned must have
taken place some time before the end of the second century, for
inscriptions have been found in the temple, from which we learn that
Septimius Severus adorned its walls with precious marbles, between the
years 194 and 211 of our era, and the emperor Alexander Severus
displayed the like munificence between the years 222 and 235.[720] From
that era there is an entire dearth of historical information for a
period of more than twelve centuries, except the significant fact that
Alaric and his Goths sacked Puzzuoli in 456, and that Genseric did the
like in 545, A. D. Yet we have fortunately a series of natural archives
self-registered during the dark ages, by which many events which
occurred in and about the temple are revealed to us. These natural
records consist partly of deposits, which envelop the pillars below the
zone of lithodomous perforations, and partly of those which surround the
outer walls of the temple. Mr. Babbage, after a minute examination of
these, has shown (see p. 507, note) that incrustations on the walls of
the exterior chambers and on the floor of the building demonstrate that
the pavement did not sink down suddenly, but was depressed by a gradual
movement. The sea first entered the court or atrium and mingled its
waters partially with those of the hot spring. From this brackish medium
a dark calcareous precipitate (_c c_, fig. 90) was thrown down, which
became, in the course of time, more than two feet thick, including some
serpulae in it. The presence of these annelids teaches us that the water
was salt or brackish. After this period the temple was filled up with an
irregular mass of volcanic tuff (_d d_, fig. 90), probably derived from
an eruption of the neighboring crater of the Solfatara, to the height of
from five to nine feet above the pavement. Over this again a purely
freshwater deposit of carbonate of lime (_e e_, fig. 90) accumulated
with an _uneven_ bottom since it necessarily accommodated itself to the
irregular outline of the upper surface of the volcanic shower before
thrown down. The top of the same deposit (a freshwater limestone) was
perfectly even and flat, bespeaking an ancient water level. It is
suggested by Mr. Babbage that this freshwater lake may have been caused
by the fall of ashes which choked up the channel previously
communicating with the sea, so that the hot spring threw down calcareous
matter in the atrium, without any marine intermixture. To the freshwater
limestone succeeded another irregular mass of volcanic ashes and rubbish
(_f f_, fig. 90), some of it perhaps washed in by the waves of the sea
during a storm, its surface rising to ten or eleven feet above the
pavement. And thus we arrive at the period of greatest depression
expressed in the accompanying diagram, when the lower half of the
pillars were enveloped in the deposits above enumerated, and the
uppermost twenty feet were exposed in the atmosphere, the remaining or
middle portion, about nine feet long, being for years immersed in salt
water and drilled by perforating bivalves. After this period other
strata, consisting of showers of volcanic ashes and materials washed in
during storms, covered up the pillars to the height in some places of
thirty-five feet above the pavement. The exact time when these
enveloping masses were heaped up, and how much of them were formed
during submergence, and how much after the re-elevation of the temple,
cannot be made out with certainty.
The period of deep submergence was certainly antecedent to the close of
the fifteenth century. Professor James Forbes[721] has reminded us of a
passage in an old Italian writer Loffredo, who says that in 1530, or
fifty years before he wrote, which was in 1580, the sea washed the base
of the hills which rise from the flat land called La Starza, as
represented in fig. 90, so that, to quote his words, "a person might
then have fished from the site of those ruins which are now called the
stadium" (A, fig. 90).
But we know from other evidence that the upward movement had begun
before 1530, for the Canonico Andrea di Jorio cites two authentic
documents in illustration of this point. The first, dated Oct. 1503, is
a deed written in Italian, by which Ferdinand and Isabella grant to the
University of Puzzuoli a portion of land, "where the sea is drying up"
(che va seccando el mare); the second, a document in Latin, dated May
23, 1511, or nearly eight years after, by which Ferdinand grants to the
city a certain territory around Puzzuoli, where the ground _is dried up_
from the sea (desiccatum).[722]
The principal elevation, however, of the low tract unquestionably took
place at the time of the great eruption of Monte Nuovo in 1538. That
event and the earthquakes which preceded it have been already described
(p. 368); and we have seen that two of the eye-witnesses of the
convulsion, Falconi and Giacomo di Toledo, agree in declaring that the
sea abandoned a considerable tract of the shore, so that fish were taken
by the inhabitants; and, among other things, Falconi mentions that he
saw two springs _in the newly discovered ruins_.
The flat land, when first upraised, must have been more extensive than
now, for the sea encroaches somewhat rapidly, both to the north and
southeast of Puzzuoli. The coast had, when I examined it in 1828, given
way more than a foot in a twelvemonth; and I was assured, by fishermen
in the bay, that it has lost ground near Puzzuoli, to the extent of
thirty feet, within their memory.
It is, moreover, very probable that the land rose to a greater height at
first before it ceased to move upwards, than the level at which it was
observed to stand when the temple was rediscovered in 1749, for we learn
from a memoir, of Niccolini, published in 1838, that since the beginning
of the nineteenth century, the temple of Serapis has subsided more than
two feet. That learned architect visited the ruins frequently, for the
sake of making drawings, in the beginning of the year 1807, and was in
the habit of remaining there throughout the day, yet never saw the
pavement overflowed by the sea, except occasionally when the south wind
blew violently. On his return, sixteen years after, to superintend some
excavations ordered by the king of Naples, he found the pavement covered
by sea-water twice every day at high tide, so that he was obliged to
place there a line of stones to stand upon. This induced him to make a
series of observations from Oct. 1822 to July 1838, by which means he
ascertained that the ground had been and was sinking, at the average
rate of about seven millimetres a year, or about one inch in four years;
so that, in 1838, fish were caught every day on that part of the
pavement where, in 1807, there was never a drop of water in calm
weather.[723]
On inquiring still more recently as to the condition of the temple and
the continuance of the sinking of the ground, I learn from Signor
Scacchi in a letter, dated June 1852, that the downward movement has
ceased for several years, or has at least become almost inappreciable.
During an examination undertaken by him at my request in the summer of
that year (1852), he observed that the rising tide spread first over the
seaward side of the flat surface of the pedestals of each column
(confirming the fact previously noticed by others, that they are out of
the perpendicular); and he also remarked that the water gained unequally
on the base of each pillar, in such a manner as to prove that they have
neither the same amount of inclination, nor lean precisely in the same
direction.
From what was said before (p. 510), we saw that the marine shells in the
strata forming the plain called La Starza, considered separately,
establish the fact of an upheaval of the ground to the height of
twenty-three feet and upwards. The temple proves much more, because it
could not have been built originally under water, and must therefore
first have sunk down twenty feet at least below the waves, to be
afterwards restored to its original position. Yet if such was the order
of events we ought to meet with other independent signs of a like
subsidence round the margin of a bay once so studded with buildings as
the Bay of Baiae. Accordingly memorials of such submergence are not
wanting. About a mile northwest of the temple of Serapis, and about 500
feet from the shore, are the ruins of a temple of Neptune and others of
a temple of the Nymphs, now underwater. The columns of the former
edifice stand erect in five feet of water, their upper portions just
rising to the surface of the sea. The pedestals are doubtless buried in
the sand or mud; so that, if this part of the bottom of the bay should
hereafter be elevated, the exhumation of these temples might take place
after the manner of that of Serapis. Both these buildings probably
participated in the movement which raised the Starza; but either they
were deeper under water than the temple of Serapis, or they were not
raised up again to so great a height. There are also two Roman roads
under water in the bay, one reaching from Puzzuoli to the Lucrine Lake,
which may still be seen, and the other near the castle of Baiae (No. 8,
fig. 88, p. 509). The ancient mole, too, of Puzzuoli (No. 4, ibid.)
before alluded to, has the water up to a considerable height of the
arches; whereas Brieslak justly observes, it is next to certain that the
piers must formerly have reached the surface before the springing of the
arches;[724] so that, although the phenomena before described prove that
this mole has been uplifted ten feet above the level at which it once
stood, it is still evident that it has not yet been restored to its
original position.
A modern writer also reminds us, that these effects are not so local as
some would have us to believe; for on the opposite side of the Bay of
Naples, on the Sorrentine coast, which, as well as Puzzuoli, is subject
to earthquakes, a road, with some fragments of Roman buildings, is
covered to some depth by the sea. In the island of Capri, also, which is
situated some way out at sea, in the opening of the Bay of Naples, one
of the palaces of Tiberius is now covered with water.[725]
That buildings should have been submerged, and afterwards upheaved,
without being entirely reduced to a heap of ruins, will appear no
anomaly, when we recollect that, in the year 1819, when the delta of the
Indus sank down, the houses within the fort of Sindree subsided beneath
the waves without being overthrown. In like manner, in the year 1692,
the buildings round the harbor of Port Royal, in Jamaica, descended
suddenly to the depth of between thirty and fifty feet under the sea
without falling. Even on small portions of land transported to a
distance of a mile down a declivity, tenements, like those near Mileto,
in Calabria, were carried entire. At Valparaiso buildings were left
standing in 1822, when their foundations, together with a long tract of
the Chilian coast, were permanently upraised to the height of several
feet. It is still more easy to conceive that an edifice may escape
falling during the upheaval or subsidence of land, if the walls are
supported on the exterior and interior with a deposit like that which
surrounded and filled to the height of ten or eleven feet the temple of
Serapis all the time it was sinking, and which enveloped it to more than
twice that height when it was rising again to its original level.
We can scarcely avoid the conclusion, as Mr. Babbage has hinted, "that
the action of heat is in some way or other the cause of the phenomena of
the change of level of the temple. Its own hot spring, its immediate
contiguity to the Solfatara, its nearness to the Monte Nuovo, the hot
spring at the baths of Nero (No. 6, fig. 88), on the opposite side of
the Bay of Baiae; the boiling springs and ancient volcanoes of Ischia on
one side and Vesuvius on the other, are the most prominent of a
multitude of facts which point to that conclusion."[726] And when we
reflect on the dates of the principal oscillations of level, and the
volcanic history of the country before described (chap. 23), we seem to
discover a connection between each era of upheaval and a local
development of volcanic heat, and again between each era of depression
and the local quiescence or dormant condition of the subterranean
igneous causes. Thus for example, before the Christian era, when so many
vents were in frequent eruption in Ischia, and when Avernus and other
points in the Phlegraean Fields were celebrated for their volcanic aspect
and character, the ground on which the temple stood was several feet
above water. Vesuvius was then regarded as a spent volcano; but when,
after the Christian era, the fires of that mountain were rekindled,
scarcely a single outburst was ever witnessed in Ischia, or around the
Bay of Baiae. Then the temple was sinking. Vesuvius, at a subsequent
period, became nearly dormant for five centuries preceding the great
outbreak of 1631 (see p. 374), and in that interval the Solfatara was in
eruption A. D. 1198, Ischia in 1302, and Monte Nuovo was formed in 1538.
Then the foundations on which the temple stood were rising again.
Lastly, Vesuvius once more became a most active vent, and has been so
ever since, and during the same lapse of time the area of the temple, so
far as we know any thing of its history, has been subsiding.
These phenomena would agree well with the hypothesis, that when the
subterranean heat is on the increase, and when lava is forming without
obtaining an easy vent, like that afforded by a great habitual chimney,
such as Vesuvius, the incumbent surface is uplifted; but when the heated
rocks below are cooling and contracting, and sheets of lava are slowly
consolidating and diminishing in volume, then the incumbent land
subsides.
Signor Niccolini, when he ascertained in 1838 that the relative levels
of the floor of the temple and of the sea were slowly changing from year
to year, embraced the opinion that it was the sea which was rising. But
Signor Capocci successfully controverted this view, appealing to many
appearances which attest the local character of the movements of the
adjoining country, besides the historical fact that in 1538, when the
sea retired permanently 200 yards from the ancient shore at Puzzuoli,
there was no simultaneous retreat of the waters from Naples,
Castelamare, and Ischia.[727]
_Permanence of the ocean's level._--In concluding this subject I may
observe, that the interminable controversies to which the phenomena of
the Bay of Baiae gave rise, have sprung from an extreme reluctance to
admit that the land, rather than the sea, is subject alternately to rise
and fall. Had it been assumed that the level of the ocean was
invariable, on the ground that no fluctuations have as yet been clearly
established, and that, on the other hand, the continents are inconstant
in their level, as has been demonstrated by the most unequivocal proofs
again and again, from the time of Strabo to our own times, the
appearances of the temple at Puzzuoli could never have been regarded as
enigmatical. Even if contemporary accounts had not distinctly attested
the upraising of the coast, this explanation should have been proposed
in the first instance as the most natural, instead of being now adopted
unwillingly when all others have failed.
To the strong prejudices still existing in regard to the mobility of the
land, we may attribute the rarity of such discoveries as have been
recently brought to light in the Bay of Baiae and the Bay of Conception.
A false theory, it is well known, may render us blind to facts which are
opposed to our prepossessions, or may conceal from us their true import
when we behold them. But it is time that the geologist should, in 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 sea "The image 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 wild wave's play:
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow;
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iv.