On the Cause of the Earthquakes in the Ionian Isles. 121 



and which has escaped uninjured when every other village in the 

 island has been more or less ruined. This is the little village of 

 Frini, situated on strata of limestone, lightly inclined, elevated 

 above the adjoining lowlands, about 600 feet, and presenting to- 

 wards them several precipices. I visited Santa Maura a few weeks 

 after the destructive earthquake of 1825. I explored the whole 

 island, and Frini was the only village I found which had not 

 then suffered. The shock was felt there, but not a single house 

 was thrown down, whilst in the neighbouring town of Amaxachi, 

 or Santa Maura, as it is more commonly called, hardly a single 

 house was left standing. 



3. The Ionian Islands are very peculiar in relation to the dis- 

 tribution and rise of water to the surface. The marl districts 

 subject to earthquakes abound in springs. The limestone dis- 

 tricts exempt from them are destitute of springs, and would be 

 uninhabitable without tanks in which rain-water is collected and 

 preserved for use. Near the sea, apparently without distinction 

 in relation to the kind of ground, copious springs, some of them 

 saline, often burst forth, and occasionally even in the sea. 



I have now pointed out the principal circumstances which to 

 me seem to favour the idea I have formed of the probable origin 

 of these earthquakes. You will ask, perhaps, Why prefer this 

 notion to the commonly received hypothesis which connects them 

 with volcanic action ? I may reply, that the two supposed causes 

 are nowise incompatible ; that they may act either separately or 

 together ; that probably the most violent earthquakes are owing 

 to the volcanic cause, the slighter and partial, such as are wit- 

 nessed in the Ionian Islands, to the cause I have imagined. I 

 am farther led to this conclusion, by not having been able to 

 discover, in any part of the Ionian Islands (and I have explored 

 the whole of them with care), any traces of volcanic fires, any 

 traces of trap-rocks, or a single spring, the temperature of which 

 was above the mean annual temperature of the spot where it 

 rose. This is negative evidence, as it appears to me, of a very 

 strong kind, against the earthquakes of these islands having a 

 volcanic origin — especially the fact of the entire absence of warm 

 springs. It seems hardly possible that their cause can be vol- 



