84 HISTORY OF 



towiis were destroyed by this shock ; and all the animals that 

 were near them were killed." In the times of Trajan, the city 

 of Antioch, and a great part of the adjacent country, was buried 

 by an earthquake. About three hundred years after, in the 

 times of Justinian, it was once more destroyed, together with 

 forty thousand inhabitants ; and, after an interval of sixty years, 

 the same ill-fated city was a third time overturned, with the loss 

 of not less than sixty thousand souls. In the year 1182, most 

 of the cities of Syria, and the kingdom of Jerusalem, were de- 

 stroyed by the same accident. In the year l.SOi, the Italian his. 

 torians describe an earthquake at Puteoli, which caused the sea to 

 retire two hundred yards from its former bed. 



But one of those most particularly described in histoiy, is that 

 of the year 1693 ; the damages of which were chiefly felt in 

 Sicily, but its motion perceived in Germany, France, and Eng- 

 land. It extended to a circumference of two thousand six 

 hundred leagues ; chiefly affecting the sea-coast and great rivers; 

 more perceivable also upon the mountains than in the valleys. 

 Its motions were so rapid, that those who lay at their length 

 were tossed from side to side, as upon a rolling billow.' The 

 walls were dashed from their foundations ; and no less than fifty- 

 fom- cities, with an incredible number of villages, were either 

 destroyed or greatly damaged. The city of Catanea, in parti- 

 cular, was utterly overthrown. A traveller, who was on his 

 way thither, at the distance of some miles, perceived a black 

 cloud, like night, hanging over the place. The sea, all of a sud- 

 den, began to loar ; Mount .3r]tna to send forth great spires of 

 flame ; and soon after a shock ensued, with a noise as if all the 

 artillery in the world had been at once discharged. Our travel- 

 ler, being obliged to alight, instantly felt himself raised a foot 

 from the ground j and turning his eyes to the city, he, with 

 iiinazement, saw nothing but a thick cloud of dust in the aii. 

 The birds flew about astonished : the sun was darkened ; the 

 beasts ran howling from the hills ; and although the shock did 

 not continue above three minutes, yet near nineteen thousand of 

 the inhabitants of Sicily perished in the ruins. — Catanea, to 

 which city the describer was travelling, seemed the principal 

 Bcene of ruin ; its place only was to be found ; and not a footstep 

 of its former magniriccnce was to be seen remaining. 



