on the Surface of the Morea. 19 



be carried farther back than the commencement of the present 

 epoch. 



The environs of Mistra exhibit the results of a catastrophe 

 even more recent, and of which history has preserved the record. 

 If we ascend the hills to the north of the town, in the direction of 

 Tripi and the lovely cypress of Stavro, which every traveller 

 admires, eminences are found on the surface of the soil, which, 

 by their peculiar form and composition, cannot fail to attract 

 attention. 



The surface, formed of aluminous slates deeply ravined, is 

 covered with eminences formed of great masses, and not of frag- 

 ments, of siliceous limestones, quartzose rocks, and schists of 

 different kinds, thrown together in confusion. The fractures are 

 still fresh and the edges sharp, and when we leave the place where 

 the principal masses are crowded together, small debris may be 

 seen lying on the vegetable earth. 



On looking at the shape of these hills, and judging from the 

 nature and the disorder of the materials of which they are com- 

 posed, we can have no doubt that they are the result of a tumbling 

 down of the peak called Paximadi, which rises 1500 metres 

 above these eminences, with one of the most rapid inclinations in 

 the chain of the Taygetus. 



If we compare these observations with the accounts of anti- 

 quity of the celebrated earthquake, which, 469 years before 

 Christ, overthrew Sparta entirely, opened numerous gulfs in 

 Laconia, and caused one of the summits of Taygetus to crumble 

 down, facts established by Cicero, Plutarch, Strabo, and Pliny ; 

 and the first of whom describes the shape of the summit which 

 was thrown down *, it cannot be doubted but we have discovered 

 the remains of that great catastrophe, after a lapse of twenty-three 

 centuries. (Extract from thejifik chapter of the Description of 

 the Morea: Recent Phenomena, by M. Boblaye, unpub- 

 lished.) 



" Cum et urbs tola corndt et ex monte Taygeto extrema montis quasi puppis 

 avulsa est. (Cic. de Divin., lib. i. 



B 2 



