VOL. XVIII,] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 625 



N° I. Extract of a Letter from Father Alvarez de Toledo, a Franciscan 

 Friar, dated Oct. 29, 1687. — Oct. 20, (N. S.) at 4 o'clock in the morning, 

 came on a dreadful earthquake and noise, by which some houses fell, and some 

 persons were killed under their ruins. At 5 o'clock the same morning was another 

 shake with the like noise. At 6 o'clock the aforesaid morning, when we thought 

 we had been all in safety, came another shake, with great fury and rushing 

 noise; the sea with great bellowings rushed beyond its bounds, the bells rang of 

 themselves, and every building thrown down. Callao, Canete, Pisco, Chancay, 

 and Los Chorillos, are all ruined. More than 5000 dead bodies are found ; and 

 more are found daily; so that their number is not known. 



!N° II. By Dr. Sloane. — The inhabitants of Jamaica expect an earthquake 

 every year. Some are of opinion, that they follow the great rains. One of 

 them happened on Sunday the IQth of Feb. l687-8, about 8 in the morning. 

 I found in a chamber, one story high, the cabinets and several other moveables 

 on the floor to reel, as if people had raised the foundations of the house. 

 Being in a high brick house, I made what haste I could to get out; but before 

 I had passed through two rooms, and got to the stair-case, it was over. It 

 came by shocks; there were three of them, with a little pause between. It 

 lasted about a minute of time in all: and there was a small noise accompanied 

 it. This was generally felt all over the island at the same time, or near it; 

 some houses therein being cracked and very near ruined, others being un- 

 covered of their tiles; very few escaped some injury. The ships in the harbour 

 at Port- Royal felt it; and one who was eastward of the island coming thither 

 from Europe, met with, at the same time, a hurricane. A gentleman being 

 at that time abroad in his plantation, told me, he saw the ground rise like 

 the sea in a wave, as the earthquake passed along, and that it went north- 

 ward ; for soon after he had felt it, he saw by the motion of the tops of the 

 trees on hills some miles distant, that it had then reached no farther than that 

 place. The Spaniards who inhabited this island, and those neighbouring, built 

 their houses very low; and they consisted only of ground-rooms, their walls 

 being made of posts, which were as much buried under-ground as they stood 

 above, purposely to avoid the danger which attended another manner of 

 building, from earthquakes. And I have seen in the mountains afar off bare 

 spots, the effects of earthquakes throwing down part of the hills, which con- 

 tinued bare and steep. 



N° III. On the terrible Earthquake at Port-Royal, in Jamaica, June 7, 1 692. 

 — ^The terrible earthquake which happened the" 7th instant, between 11 and 

 12 o'clock at noon, shook down and drowned nine-tenths of the town of 

 Port-Royal in two minutes time, and all near the wharf-side in less than one 



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