EARTHQUAKES. 249 



of the terrible energy of the earth's subterranean 

 forces : 



The mountains Arrabida, Estrella, Julio, Marvan, 

 and Cintra, some of the largest in Portugal, were 

 shaken from their very foundations, they opened at 

 their summits, and huge masses were flung into the 

 neighbouring valleys. Flames and smoke were emitted 

 from the openings. But much farther away the effects 

 of the great convulsion were experienced. It has been 

 computed, says Humboldt, that a portion of the 

 earth's surface four times greater than the whole 

 extent of Europe was simultaneously shaken. On the 

 coasts of Sweden and on the shores of the Baltic, far 

 away across the Atlantic to the Antigua Islands, at 

 Barbadoes and Martinique, and still further off in the 

 great Canadian Lakes, the movement was sensibly felt. 

 A vast wave of inky blackness swept over the West 

 Indian seas, rising twenty feet above the level of the 

 highest tides. In Algeria the earth was as violently 

 shaken as in Portugal, and eight leagues from Morocco 

 a village with 8,000 inhabitants was swallowed up. 



The shocks felt at sea were so violent that captains 

 who experienced them thought their ships had struck 

 the solid ground. A ship 120 miles to the west of 

 St. Vincent was so violently shaken that the men were 

 thrown half a yard perpendicularly upwards from the 

 deck. Lakes and rivers in England were strangely 

 agitated. The water in Loch Lomond suddenly rose 

 against the banks without apparent cause, and then as 

 suddenly subsided the vibration of the earth's surface 



