boring-shells

Updated: June 9, 2025

Three tall columns of cipollino marble, belonging to the portico of this building, are still standing, with their bases under water; and they have acquired a world-wide interest, especially to geologists, as records of the successive elevations and depressions of the coast-line during the historical period; these changes being indicated on their shafts by the different watermarks and the perforations of marine bivalves or boring-shells well known to be living in the Mediterranean Sea.

Hugh Macmillan - Roman Mosaics: Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood