632 THE UNIVERSE. 



to ten in the morning, at a time when the streets and the 

 churches were thronged with people, a frightful subter- 

 ranean noise struck all the inhabitants with stupefaction, 

 and six minutes afterwards this great city was only a heap 

 of ruins, under which lay an immense number of victims. 



In the catastrophe of Messina, in 1783, the movement 

 was still more rapid ; in two minutes the town was utterly 

 overturned, and, to add to the horror, fire devoured the 

 ruins which the earthquake had heaped up. 



But if these shocks thus concentrate their principal action 

 upon one point, if a city collapse entirely without the 

 neighboring districts suffering any notable damage, vol- 

 canic action, on the other hand, is sometimes so powerful 

 that it shakes the crust of the earth from one pole to an- 

 other. Thus all Europe and part of Africa were shaken 

 when the commotion of Lisbon took place. The Alps and 

 the Pyrenees trembled to the base, the sea rose and fell on 

 the coast of Sweden, Norway, the British Isles, and also 

 upon those of America. At the time when Lisbon collapsed 

 all the richest cities of Morocco were almost totally de- 

 stroyed. Near the capital of this state an oasis with 8000 

 or 10,000 inhabitants disappeared. 



Earthquakes are sometimes accompanied by very un- 

 wonted phenomena. Some curious ones were noticed dur- 

 ing that which ravaged all Calabria in 1785. According to 

 Hamilton, mountains were seen to rise at one moment, and 

 sink again some time after. Dwellings, with the persons 

 they contained, were transported from one place to another 

 without the least damage ; some were moved to higher 

 places than they had previously occupied ; others descended 



