prevalent Disorders^ Sfc, with Volcanic Emanations. 201 



remarking, and which was the same on the whole coast of 

 Calabria that had been most affected by the earthquakes, is, 

 that a small fish called cicii^eUi, resembling what we call in 

 England white bait, but of a greater size, and which umally 

 lie at the bottom of the sea, buried in the sand, have been, ever 

 since the commencement of the earthquakes, and continue 

 still to be, taken near the surface, and in such abundance, 

 as to be the common food of the poorest sort of people; whereas, 

 before the earthquakes, this fsh was rare, and reckoned 

 amongst the greatest delicacies. All fsh, in general, have 

 been taken in greater abundance, and with much greater faci- 

 lity, in these parts, sifice they have been afflicted with earth- 

 quakes, than before. 1 constantly asked every fisherman I 

 met with on the coast of Sicily and Calabria, if this circum- 

 stance was true; and was as constantly answered in the 

 affirmative, but with such emphasis, that it must have been 

 extraordinary. I suppose that either the sand at the bottom 

 of the sea may have been heated by the volcanic fire under it, 

 or that the continual tremor of the earth has driven the fish 

 out of their strongholds." {Phil. Trans., vol. Ixxiii.) 



The same writer, describing the eruption of Vesuvius (in 

 1 794?), observes : — " A few days ago, a shoal of fish, of several 

 hundred weight, having been observed by some fishermen, 

 at Resina, in great agitation at the surface of the sea, near 

 some rocks of an ancient lava that had run into the sea, they 

 surrounded them with their nets, and took them all with ease, 

 and afterwards discovered that they had been stunned by the 

 mephitic vapour which at that time issued forcibly from under- 

 neath the ancient lava into the sea. . . . The divers there 

 (near Portici) likewise told me, that, for the space of a mile 

 from that shore, since the eruption, they have found all the 

 fish dead in their shells, as they supposed, either from the 

 heat of the sand at the bottom of the sea, or from poisonous 

 vapour:' {Phil. Trans., 1795.) 



Mr. Wright of Glasgow visited Graham's Island on the 

 20th Aug. 1831. He says, in the account published in the 

 Penny Magazine (No. 1 14. for Jan. 4. 1834, p. 10.), that the 

 people with him found, on the south-east side of the island, on 

 a strip of beach, " half dead and stupified, a fine large pesce- 

 spada, or swordfish. This they secured, and carried back 

 with them to Sciacca, where they found it weighed upwards 

 of 60 lbs. English. The fate of the fish," says Mr. W., 

 " must have arisen y/'om its coming too near the hot and con- 

 taminated water, which on all sides surrounded the island to 

 a greater or less distance." * 



* It is forestalling the subject, but it is right to add here, that my con- 

 jectures respecting the storm of June 11. ayid 12. 1833, were realised y hy the 



