374 



cumstance was particularly remarked, in which this 

 earthquake differed very considerably from others, 

 viz, that if two towns were situated at an equal dis- 

 tance from this centre, one on the hill, the oftier on 

 the plain or in a bottom, the latter always suffered 

 more by the shoeks of the earthquakes than the 

 former. 



Sir William Hamilton, who was ambassador from 

 this country to the court of Naples, thus describes the 

 effects of the earthquake in that country : " I tra- 

 velled (says he) four days in the plain, in the midst 

 of such misery as cannot be described. The force of 

 the earthquake there was so great, that all the inha- 

 bitants of the towns were buried, alive or dead, in the 

 ruins of their houses in an instant. The town of 

 Polistene was large, but ill situated between two 

 rivers that were subject to overflow. Two thousand 

 one hundred, out of 6,000, lost their lives here on 

 the fatal 5th of February." At Castel Nuova, the 

 princess Gerace Grimaldi, with 4,000 of her subjects, 

 perished on the same day by the explosion ; for such 

 it appears to have been. Some who had been dug 

 alive out of the ruins, told our author, that they had 

 felt their houses fairly lifted up, without having the 

 least previous notice. An inhabitant of Castel Nuova 

 was at that moment on a hill overlooking the plain ; 

 when, feeling the shock, and turning round, instead 

 of the town, he saw only a thick cloud of white dust, 

 like smoke, the natural effect of the crushing of the 

 buildings and the mortar flying off. 



The town of Castel Nuova was so effectually 

 destroyed by this dreadful shock, that neither vestige 

 of house or street remained, but all lay in one con- 

 fused heap of ruins. Castillace and Milicusco, which 

 our author next visited, were both in the same situa- 

 tion. Terra Nuova, situated in the same plain, stood 

 between two rivers, which with the torrents from the 

 mountains, had, in the course of ages, cut deep and 

 wide chasms in the soft sandy clay soil of which it is 

 composed. At Terra Nuova, the ravine or chasm is not 

 less than 500 feet deep, and three quarters of a mile 

 broad. Here the accounts of the earthquake were 

 confused, by not having the situation of the place and 

 nature of the soil explained. It was said, that a town 

 had been thrown a mile from the place on which it 

 stood, without mentioning a word of the ravine ; that 

 woods and corn-fields had been removed in the same 

 manner, " when in truth (says our author) it was but 

 upon a large scale what we see every day upon a 

 smaller ; when pieces of the sides of hollow ways, 

 having been undermined by rain waters, are detached 

 by their own weight. Here, from the great depth of 

 the ravine, and the violent motion of the earth, two 

 huge portions of the latter, on which a great part of 

 the town stood, which consisted of some hundred 

 houses, had been detached into the ravine, and nearly 

 across it, at about the distance of half a mile from 

 the place where they formerly stood ; and what is 

 very extraordinary, many of the inhabitants who had 

 taken this singujar leap in their houses, were never- 

 theless dug out alive, and some unhurt." Our author's 

 guide there, who was both a priest and physician, 

 having been buried in the ruins of his house by the 

 first shock, was thrown out of it and delivered by the 

 second, which immediately followed the first ; and 

 there were many well attested instances of the same 

 thing having happened in different parts of Calabria. 

 At Terra Nuova, however, only 400 out of 1600 inha- 

 bitants were left alive. 



EARTHQUAKE. 



In other parts of the plain, situated near the ravine 

 and near the town of Terra Nuova, our author saw 

 many acres of land, with trees and corn-fields, that 

 had been detached into the ravine, frequently without 

 having been overturned ; so that the crops were grow- 

 ing as well as if they had been planted there. Other 

 such pieces were lying in the bottom in an inclined 

 situation ; and others again that had been quite over- 

 turned. In one place, two of these immense pieces 

 of land having been detached, opposite to one an- 

 other, had filled the valley, and stopped the course of 

 the river, the waters of which were forming a great 

 lake ; " and this (says our author) is the true state of 

 what the accounts mention of mountains that had 

 walked, and having joined together, stopped the 

 course of a river, and formed a lake." 



Having thus described two of the most remarkable 

 earthquakes in the olden time, which are valuable 

 from their being well authenticated, we may now 

 briefly notice a most extraordinary natural pheno- 

 menon of this description, which occurred in 1812. 

 The state of Missouri, which forms one of the western 

 settlements of the United States of America, was the 

 theatre of this catastrophe ; and we cannot do better 

 than furnish a condensed view from the account given 

 by Mr. Flint, in his " Recollections of the Valley of 

 the Mississippi." This traveller, who visited the 

 country about seven years after the event, says, that 

 " from all the accounts corrected by one another, and 

 compared with the very imperfect narratives which 

 were published, I infer that the shock of these earth- 

 quakes in the immediate vicinity of the centre of their 

 force, must have equalled, in their terrible hea\ ings 

 of the earth, any thing of the kind that has been 

 recorded. I do not believe that the public have ever 

 yet had any adequate idea of the violence of the con- 

 cussions. We are accustomed to measure this by the 

 buildings overturned, and the mortality that results. 

 Here the country was thinly settled ; the houses, 

 fortunately, were of logs, the most difficult to over- 

 turn that could be constructed. Yet, as it was, whole 

 tracts were plunged into the bed of the river. The 

 grave-yard at New Madrid, with all its sleeping 

 tenants, was precipitated into the bed of the stream. 

 Most of the houses were thrown down : large lakes 

 of twenty miles in extent were made in one hour. 

 Other lakes were drained. The whole country to the 

 mouth of the Ohio in one direction, and to the 

 St. Francis in the other, including a front of 300 

 miles, was convulsed to such a degree as to create 

 lakes and islands, the number of which is not yet 

 known, to cover a tract of many miles in extent, near 

 the Little Prairie, with water three or four feet, deep ; 

 and when the water disappeared, a stratum of sand 

 of the same thickness was left in its place. The trees 

 split in the midst, lashed one with another, and are 

 still visible over great tracts of country, inclining in 

 every direction and in every angle to the earth, and 

 to the horizon. 



" The inhabitants described the undulation of the 

 earth as resembling waves, increasing in elevation as 

 they advanced ; and when they had attained a cer- 

 tain fearful height, the earth would burst, and vast 

 volumes of water, and sand, and pit-coal, were dis- 

 charged as high as the tops of the trees. I have seen 

 a hundred of these chasms, which remained fearfully 

 deep, although in a very tender alluvial soil, and 

 after a lapse of seven years : whole districts were 

 covered with white sand, so as to become uninhabit- 



