Extract of a Letter to J. Carrick Moore, Esq. from Colonel Macintosh, F.G.S.

Abstract

....When at Naples I visited Pozzuoli twice; the first time on the 27th of May 1847, at seven o9clock p.m. The tide was still flowing slowly out of the Temple of Serapis. The water was then exactly on a line with the angular base of the northern column (<i>a</i>), the surface of which, as well as the first ring (<i>a b</i>), was at the time wet, and covered with short green weeds resembling moss, clearly indicating the water-mark of the ordinary tide. A dark dry mark without weed reached about 6 inches higher, seeming to point out the water-mark in high tides; and similar marks corresponded with these on every other part of the building reached by the sea-water, I returned on the 6th of June at five o9clock p.m., and found the water reaching about half an inch above the point (<i>b</i>), and therefore entirely covering the first or lowest ring (<i>a b</i>). I placed the end of my foot-rule on the upper surface of the angular base (<i>a</i>), and found the depth of water above it (expressed by a dotted line) to measure exactly 6½ inches.