Progress of Foreign Seienee. 341 



Of M. Fourier's speculations on the above curious facts, we 

 shall give some account in the next Number. 



The following extract from a letter of Count Mercate, de- 

 scribing the earthquake in the Isle of Zante, 29 Dec. 1820, may 

 perhaps be found interesting among geological phenomena : 

 " Towards midnight," says he, " I heard a hollow and inter- 

 rupted noise, which appeared to issue from the bosom of the 

 earth. This noise resembled the sound of a drum, beat from 

 time to time in a subterraneous vault. It was heard by the 

 greater number of persons who were awake at the time. We 

 passed the night in a state of horror, and at ten minutes before 

 four o'clock in the morning a sudden blast of wind, of an extra- 

 ordinary violence, made us imagine the end of the world had 

 arrived. This wind instantly subsided into a dead calm. Pre- 

 saging the impending raistortune, I experienced an inward 

 indescribable horror. In this melancholy mood I had thrown 

 myself into bed, when I felt struck all at once by a horrible 

 subterranean bellowing, announcing the commotion of the earth, 

 which immediately ensued. I instantly rose up, but the vio- 

 lence of the shocks made me fall back on the bed. These 

 concussions were threefold ; the first, of great violence, was 

 vertical ; the second produced an undulatory movement ; and 

 the third, which was the most powerful, gave a rotatory motion. 

 The most solidly-built houses could not resist the violence of 

 these earthquakes. Eighty were entirely overturned, nearly 

 eight hundred were horribly shattered, and the others so da- 

 maged as to be uninhabitable without being repaired. A con- 

 fused and sudden noise of shouts and crying announced the 

 universal alarm of the population, who thought their last hour 

 was come. But in the midst of so many disasters, it is re- 

 markable that only four persons were killed, and a few others 

 wounded by the ruins." He speaks in very warm terms of the 

 liberal charity of Lord Strangford, ambassador to the Porte, 

 who was then in the harbour, as well as of the Lord High Com- 

 missioner, Sir P. Ross. 



Three or four minutes before the first shock there was seen, 

 at the distance of two leagues from the promontory of Geraca, 

 to the south-east of the island, a fiery meteor, almost swim- 

 ming on the sea, which remained lighted for five or six mi- 

 nutes. The following day there was a meteor, which blazed 

 forth at four o'clock ia the evening, and describing in the air a 

 vast parabola from east to west, fell into the sea. 



Meteorology. See Metcorolites, under Analysis. — M. 

 Vogel ofMunich, while spending some days on the banks of 

 tho Baltic, was told that different invalids, labouring under 

 asthmas, &c., found themselves much better on sea than on 

 shorr. He then examined the air in different situations, and 

 found that the sea air a league from shore, when admitted into 



