378 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [ANNO 1783. 



indicated their anxious care to protect them : a strong instance of the maternal 

 tenderness of the sex ! 



Speaking of the 3 tenements, called the Macini and Vaticano, mentioned in 

 the former part of this letter, and which were said to have changed their situa- 

 tion by the earthquake ; Sir Wm. says, the fact is true, and easily to be accounted 

 for. These tenements were situated in a valley surrounded by high grounds, 

 and the surface of the earth, which has been removed, had been probably long 

 undermined by little rivulets, which come from the mountains, and now are 

 in full view on the bare spot the tenements had deserted. These rivulets have a 

 sufficiently rapid course down the valley, to prove its not being a perfect level as 

 was represented. I suppose the earthquake to have opened some depositions of 

 rain-water in the clay-hills which surround the valley, which water, mixed with 

 the loose soil, taking its course suddenly through the undermined surface, lift- 

 ing it up with the large olive and mulberry trees, and a thatched cottage, floated 

 the entire piece of ground, with all its vegetation, about a mile down the valley, 

 where it now stands, with most of the trees erect. These two tenements may 

 be about a mile long, and half a mile broad. I was shown several deep cracks 

 in this neighbourhood, not one above a foot in breadth ; but which, I was cre- 

 dibl) assured, had opened wide during the earthquake, and swallowed up an ox, 

 and near a hundred goats, but no countrymen as was reported. In the valley 

 abovementioned I saw the same sort of hollows in the form of inverted cones, 

 out of which, I was assured, that hot water and sand had been emitted with 

 violence during the earthquakes as at Rosarno ; but I could not find any one who 

 could possitively affirm that the water had been really hot, though the reports 

 which government received affirm it. Some of the sand thrown out here with 

 the water has a ferruginous appearance, and seems to have been acted on 

 by fire. 



From hence I went through the same delightful country to the town of 

 Polistene. To pass through so rich a country, and not see a single house stand- 

 ing on it, is most melancholy indeed ; wherever a house stood, there you see a 

 heap of ruins, and a poor barrack, with two or three miserable mourning 

 figures sitting at the door, and here and there a maimed man, woman, or child, 

 crawling on crutches. Instead of a town, you see a confused heap of ruins, and 

 round about them numbers of poor huts or barracks, and a larger one to serve as 

 a church, with the church bells hanging on a sort of low gibbet ; every 

 inhabitant with a doleful countenance, and wearing some token of having lost a 

 parent. 



I travelled 4 days in the plain, in the midst of such misery as cannot be de- 

 scribed. The force of the earthquake was so great there, that all the inhabi- 



