376 Great Earthquakes [Book VI. 



times fo violent that the heads of the largeft trees 

 almofl touched the ground on cither fide. The Ka'ins, 

 during a great part of the time, were continual and 

 violent, often accompanied with lightning, and furious 

 gufls of wind. All that part of Calabria, which lay 

 between the 3*8 th and 3^th degrees, adorned a new 

 appearance. Houfes, churches, towns, cities, and 

 villages, were buried in one promifcuous ruin. Moun- 

 tains were detached from their foundations, and car- 

 ried to a considerable diftance *. Rivers difappeared 

 from their beds, and again returned and overflowed 

 the adjacent country j\ Streams of water fuddenly 

 guflied out of the ground, and fprang to a confideraWe 

 height. Large pieces of the furface of the plain, 

 feveral acres in extent, were carried five hundred feet 

 from their former fituation down into the bed of the 

 river, and left (banding at nearly the diftance of a mile, 

 furrounded by large plantations of olives and mul- 



* Sir William Hamilton, whofe ardeiut and laudable fpirit of 

 inquiry occaiioned his vifiting Calabria and Sicily during this 

 calamitous feafon, accounts for the removal of a mountain of 

 about f.vo hundred and fifty feet in height, and about four hun- 

 dred feet in diameter at its bafe, from the different nature of its 

 inferior and fuperior ftrata. The under part being more fqlid 

 and compact, was more ftrongly ated upon by the violent motion 

 - of the earth, and the volcanic vapours," which drove it to the 

 diftance. of fome hundred yards from its original fcite, where it lay 

 in confufed blocks, after having left the fuperior ftratum, which, 

 with its trees and vineyards, was carried in mother direction to the 

 diftance of four miles. 



f The fame philofopher accounts for this phenomenon by fup- 

 pofmg the firft impulfe of the earthquake to have come from the 

 bottom upwards, which raifing the furface of the ground, the ri- 

 vers which are not deep mutt naturally difappear ; but the earth 

 returning again with violence to its former level, the rivers muft 

 as naturally return and overflow their banks ; at the fame time the 

 boggy grounds being fuddenly deprefled, would force out the 

 water v/hick lay hid under their furface, 



berry 



