198 REACTION OF THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH 



tiling with water discoloured by ochre. At Cadiz the sea 

 rose above sixty feet ; and in the West India Islands above 

 mentioned, where the tide usually rises only from twenty-six to 

 twenty-eight French inches, it suddenly rose above twenty 

 feet, the water being discoloured and of an inky blackness. 

 It has been computed that, on that day (] st November, 1755), 

 a portion of the earth's surface, four times greater than the 

 extent of Europe, was simultaneously shaken. There is no 

 manifestation of force yet known to us (including the 

 murderous inventions of our own race), by which a greater 

 number of human beings have been killed in the short 

 space of a few seconds or minutes, than in the case of earth- 

 quakes : sixty thousand were destroyed in Sicily in 1693 ; 

 thirty to forty thousand at Eiobamba, in 1797 ; and perhaps 

 five times as many in Asia Minor and Syria under Tiberius 

 and the elder Justinian, in the years 19 and 526. 



Examples have occurred in the Andes of South America, in 

 which the earth has been shaken uninterruptedly for several 

 successsive days ; but of tremblings felt almost every hour for 

 months together, I am at present only aware of instances at 

 a distance from any volcano ; as on the eastern declivity of the 

 Mont Cenis portion of the chain of the Alps at Fenestrelles 

 and Pignerol from April 1808; in the United States of 

 America, between New Madrid and Little Prairie (north 

 of Cincinnati) in December 1811, as well as in the whole 

 winter of 1812 ;( 188 ) and in the Pachalic of Aleppo in 

 August and September 1822. From the popular dispo- 

 sition to ascribe great phsenomena to local causes, rather 

 than to rise to general views, wherever the shaking of the 

 earth is long continued, fears of the breaking out of a new 

 volcano are entertained. In particular and rare cases, these 



