Prof. Ferarra on the Earthquakes in Sicily m 1823. 161 



On the night of the 6th, at forty-five minutes past one, in St Lucia de 

 Millazz®, six miles from the shore which looks towards Vulcano and 

 Stromboli, a severe shock was felt, and afterwards, at various intervals, 

 horrible noises were heard, four distinct times, rumbling fearfully beneath 

 them ; and finally, at half past three o'clock, the shock was repeated. 

 Both were felt at Messina, but without any subterranean noises. Nothing 

 of it was felt at Palermo, or in any places in the west. At fifty-six minutes 

 past ten, during the night of the 7th, another shock was felt at Palermo, 

 sufficiently strong to put in motion the pendulum of a small clock, which 

 I had stopped that I might regulate it in the morning. Its vibration, from 

 north-east to south-west, showed me with certainty the direction of the 

 shock. Light ones were felt on the 26th. On the 31st, at fifty-two mi- 

 nutes past two, r. m., one was felt at Messina, moderately severe, of five 

 or six seconds duration, and undulating. Two others on the 1st of April, 

 and one at Castelbuono on the 28th. I should add that they mention a 

 slight one there on the 16th of February, but they are more certain of 

 those of the 5th of March, one at one r. si- the other at three. These 

 were the shocks which induced the inhabitants of Naso to leave their habi- 

 tations and flee into the country, where they were when their city was laid 

 waste. 



(To be concluded in next Number. J 



II. — Schow's Essay on Botanical Geography. Copenhagen. 1823. 



As this valuable and elaborate work has not appeared in our language, 

 we propose to lay before our botanical readers one of the most interesting 

 portions of it, which has been translated for this Journal, from the Danish, 

 by that active and intelligent naturalist, W. C. Trevelyan, Esq. F. R. S. E. 

 This portion is entitled, " On the Phyto-Geographic Division of the 

 Globe," and is divided into various sections, the most important of which 

 we shall lay before our readers. 



A Science, says M. Schow, is not established at once ; its first ideas exist, 

 are rejected, are touched upon cursorily, or are treated of without its being 

 foreseen that these ideas, will, in their time, form a self-existent branch 

 of our knowledge. Thus it has happened with rega-d to the geography of 

 plants. That plants stand in relation to climate; that Species, Genera, and 

 Families are distributed, not fortuitously, but according to determined 

 natural laws over the earth, was too evident not to fall under the view 

 of every attentive observer; but observations were too few; the tendency 

 with most botanists to be content with the mere knowledge of the exter- 

 nal forms of plants, and the low rank in which vegetable physiology stood, 

 were the causes why the local relations of plants were not viewed as a 

 connected whole, but the objects connected with it rather consider- 

 ed as curiosities. It is, therefore, in relations of travels, in some Floras, 

 and in physiological works, that the first plan to-geographical ideas are to 

 be met with, scattered, and without the least pretension of making a 

 connected whole. 



YOL. IV. MO. I. JAN. 1826. I. 



