VOLCANOES AND EARTHQUAKES. 263 



above its ordinary level. Some of the largest 

 neighbouring mountaias were violently shaken, 

 as it were, from their very foundations, and 

 some of them opened at their tops, which were 

 split and rent in a wonderful manner, huge 

 masses of them being thrown down into the 

 adjoining valleys. The most extraordinary cir- 

 cumstance that occurred at Lisbon during the 

 catastrophe was the sinking of a new quay, built 

 entirely of marble at an immense expense. A 

 great concourse of people had collected there 

 for safety, as a spot where they might be beyond 

 the reach of falling ruins, but suddenly the 

 quay sank down with all the people on it, and 

 not a single dead body ever floated to the surface. 

 Many boats and small vessels anchored near it, 

 and all, full of people, were swallowed up as if 

 in a whirlpool. No fragments of these wrecks 

 ever rose again to the surface, and the water in 

 the place where the quay had stood was stated 

 to be unfathomable, but it was afterwards found 

 to be one hundred fathoms. 



An English gentleman who was at Lisbon at 

 the time of this awful calamity, and who nar- 

 rowly escaped with his life, has written a most 

 interesting account of it, from which I will 



