the low terrace of La Starza cannot supply. The rocky cliff, perforated by the Lithodomi, tells the same tale of former submergence as the pierced marble columns; but the rock, though inscribed with the same characters, cannot tell all that is revealed by the pillars of the ancient temple of Serapis. It is something of no slight importance to the geologist to ascertain that any great change in the relative levels of sea and land has taken place within the recent human era, and this the temple columns establish at a glance. But if the date of the structure, and the uses of the edifice, can be established, far more accurate approximations may be made to a definite measurement of the period required for such geological phenomena as are there disclosed; and here it is that the scholar and the antiquary come to the aid of the scientific geologist; and from their combined labors truths of great value, and with a mutual relation of peculiar significance, are educed and rendered generally available. Sir Edmund Head undertakes the solution of three questions, all of an antiquarian character, yet each of them possessing considerable importance in any discussion relating to the geological phenomena exhibited by the ruins of the so called Temple of Serapis at Pozzuoli. These are 3rd. Can any light be thrown upon its history, or on the dates of the various changes of level? To the first of these reference has been already made. Alexandria was the great seat of the worship of Serapis in its later Egyptian form; nor was his worship abolished in that famous commercial capital till the reign of Theodosius the Great,-the effective ally of orthodoxy against the Arian heresy, when the ancient pagan rites were summarily abolished by Theophilus the archbishop of Alexandria, and the Alexandrian Temple of Serapis was demolished, or converted to the use of Christian devotees. The overthrow of the temple at Pozzuoli followed in like manner. "It served as a fortress when Olympius retreated to it, as the stronghold of paganism during those tumults, which led to the destruction of the temple itself under Theodosius." Signor Carelli, who denies the sacred character of the ruined. edifice, inclines rather to the idea of its having been public baths, but the Esculapian attributes of Serapis render the bath room pecu liarly compatible with the essential requisites or adjuncts of his temple; and on this subject Sir Edmund aduces some valuable evidence: "At Pozzuoli a building of some sort occupied the centre of the area. Whether, as in Egypt, the image of the god was placed there, or behind the four columns to which the ruin owes its modern celebrity, may be uncertain. The lowness of situation must have deprived our temple of subterranean passages, and the underground arrangements so elaborately provided in the Egyptian model. The pos session, however, of a natural hot spring just behind the temple must have made up for many disadvantages. No appendage could be more appropriate for the temple of a god who among his many attributes usurped those of Esculapius. "This warm spring, however, suggests another curious question with reference to a passage in Pausanias. After mentioning several cases of fresh springs in the sea, and the hot springs in the channel of the Meander, Pausanias proceeds as follows: Before Dicæarchia of the Tyrseni (Pozzuoli) there is water boiling up in the sea, and for the sake of it an island made with hands, so that not even this water is wasted, but serves people for warm baths.' "May not this spring be the very one now existing behind the Temple of Serapis "Had the hot spring of Pausarias originally discharged itself into the sea, it does not seem likely that it would have been used at all; but if its virtues had been long known to the inhabitants of Pozzuoli, and a gradual encroachment of the sea, or rather a depression of the land, deprived them of the benefit of the baths to which they had become accustomed, what could be more natural than that a small mound or island should be made by hand in the shallow water, in order that the baths might be again available? "Pausanias does not indeed say that these baths were connected with a temple of Serapis, but this is immaterial. "On this theory a number of curious questions present themselves. "Which is the pavement of the building existing at the time of Pausanias? What, relatively to the floor as now seen, was the level of the original building submerged in the sea? Is it represented by the mosaic pavement found five feet below the floor of the temple? If so, it would be important to examine the soil between the two pavements, and to ascertain whether it appears to warrant the supposition that it was a part of a mound constructed artificially." Here accordingly we perceive that a new element comes in to complicate the question. Not only has the land, with the superimposed temple, been raised and depressed by natural causes, but the hand of man has also been working and counter working with nature: filling in and raising up when she depressed, as now digging down to ascertain her former operations. But on this also the researches of accurate scholarship can throw fresh light. Sir Edmund Head proceeds: "It should be stated that, according to the general notion, mosaic pavements were not in common use at Rome before the time of Sylla-that is, about eighty years before Christ; but it does not follow that a mosaic pavement may not have been added after that date to a building existing before it so that the mosaic pavement in question may have been part of the Temple of Serapis mentioned in the Lex Parieti faciundo.' Pausanias lived in the time of Hadrian, as has been already stated, and, according to this view, the submergence of the first baths or temple, must have taken place between the time of Sylla and that date. We cannot, I presume, suppose that a mosaic pavement would be originally laid under water. "The level below the water of the Mediterranean of the old mosaic pavement must correspond pretty accurately with that of the base of the columns of the submerged Temple of the Nymphs' in the neighboring bay. Did this submergence take place at the time of the great eruption of Vesuvius which overwhelmed Pompeii and Herculaneum, A. D. 79? "Statius was born A. D. 61, and was therefore about nineteen at the time of the eruption of 79. As a native of Naples, he may be presumed to have been conversant with all the phenomena which then took place. His lines on the subject of the destruction of the cities are very striking: Нӕс ego Chalcidicis ad te, Marcelle, sonabam Cum segetes iterum, et jam hæc deserta virebunt, Infra urbes, populosque premi! proavitaque toto Cessat apex "The latter part of this passage seems to me to mean "lands tilled by our ancestors (proavita) have disappeared in the body of the sea" (toto mari). The commentator in the Variorum edition (Lugd. Bat. 1671) appears to understand the word "proavita" as referring to the restoration of these districts hereafter 'proavita dicit respectu futuræ posteritatis'—which seems to me absurd. How were posterity to get the lands out of the sea again? Such is not the use of the word when applied to Hector: "Pugnantem pro se, proavitaque regna tuentem." Ovid. Metamorph, xiii. 416. "I infer from the expressions of Statius that considerable tracts of land had been sunk in the sea by some sudden depression of the ground. May not this have been the time when the temple of the Nymphs, and the first baths or temple of Serapis, were covered with shallow water? Is it not possible that between this convulsion and the time when Pausanias wrote, the inhabitants of Pozzuoli may have made the island in the sea (xeipowoíntov), and have erected on it a second temple-the one of which the ruin still puzzles the geologist ?" Such are some of the ideas-disclosing the graceful union of science and scholarship by which both have been so materially benefitted in modern times,-that reach us, towards the eve of a stormy session of our Canadian Parliament, from the pen of our Provincial Viceroy, and furnish a welcome example of relaxation amid the cares and responsibilities of Government, thus found among ourselves in the delightful seductions of scientific speculation and literary research. D. W. Introduction to Cryptogamic Botany: By the Rev. M. J. BERKELEY, M.A., F.L.S. London: H. Bailliere, 219 Regent-st., 1857. A publication relating to Cryptogamic Botany, bearing Mr. Berkeley's name, cannot but be received by all students and amateurs of that branch of science with great expectation and deep interest. His profound knowledge, long experience, and discriminating judgment in respect to some of the most difficult sections of the department he has undertaken to illustrate have been abundantly proved; and, whilst there can scarcely be a higher authority than his, or a guidance better fitted to inspire confidence, there is hardly any branch of knowledge in which the want of assistance is more felt, or in which it is more eagerly sought by those who are determined seriously to apply to the subject. For many years past, few have commenced the attempt to penetrate the mysteries of cryptogamic vegetation without having recourse to a work with a title similar to our author's, by the learned Kurt Sprengel, author of the Historia Rei Herbariæ, and of a valuable edition of the Systema Vegetabilium. When it is stated that the English translation of this work was first published in 1807, the last edition in 1818, we need not wonder, that, though excellent in its time, it has of late years been felt to be out of date and that the supply of something better adapted to the present state of science was an acknowledged desideratum. It was one, however, from which a mere compiler would shrink in despair, and to the various requirements of which few of our ablest men could hope to do justice. It will be generally agreed that the work has fallen into good hands, and that we have here "the right man in the right place." In short, wherever there is a cryptogamic student, Mr. Berkeley's book will be eagerly sought after, and those who do not yet possess it will be glad to know something of what they may expect. The first chapter is devoted to the distinction between the subjects of the work and the rest of the vegetable kingdom, and the name proper to be applied to them. The author recognizes only three grand divisions-Exogens, Endogens, and Cryptogams. He says, in reference to Lindley's system: "I cannot consider Dictyogens (much less Rhizogens and Gymnogens) as a class of the same importance with Endogens and Exogens. They are so clearly endogenous, notwithstanding the peculiarities of the venation, or much more of the structure of the stem, that unless every anomaly is to be considered as overthrowing a natural division, we must either be content to leave them in company with their allies, or give up the attempt of natural arrangement altogether." Probably the advocates of the system referred to, do not hold it to be necessary that all classes should be accounted of equal importance; their view is that smaller transition groups are better separated as classes than only set apart as sub-classes of the larger class which they most nearly approach. Few for instance would be satisfied with considering Gymnogens as no more separated from other Exogens than as any one alliance, or even than as one great section is separated from another. Those who do not admit the class, divide exogens into sub-classes of very unequal extent, Angiosperma and Gymnospermæ. It can hardly be denied that this distinction is real and important. The question is respecting the best mode of expressing it, and we still incline to prefer Dr. Lindley's plan of increasing the number of classes, though some of them be obviously transition groups of smaller extent and less distinctly marked characters than the others. To us Dictyogens seem a good deal more doubtful than Gymnogens, but we like the idea of these transition classes, and accept for the present an arrangement which includes them. Grant that Gymnogens and Rhizogens have a nearer relation to Exogens, Dictyogens to Endogens, and that Acrogens and Thallogens may be connected together as Cryptogams, yet if these divisions must be recognized at all as something more than orders, the simplest way is to adopt them as classes, but without holding the principle that all classes are of equal value any more in the nature of their characters than in their extent. Having defined cryptogams by the joint consideration of their (generally) cellular substance, their growth by superficial development, the absence of organs strictly corresponding with stamens and carpels, though there are sexual organs-the general substitution of bodies resembling spermatozoa for pollen grains, and the absence of a true embryohe proceeds to justify himself in retaining the familiar name Cryptogams in preference to several which have been proposed, in which |