382 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [ANNO 1783. 



other 23 days : they would not eat for some days, but drank water plentifully, 

 and were quite recovered. There are numberless instances of dogs remaining 

 many days in the same situation ; and a hen, belonging to the British vice- 

 consul at Messina, that had been closely shut up under the ruins of his house, 

 was taken out the 22d day, and was recovered ; it did not eat for some days, 

 but drank freely ; it was emaciated, and showed little signs of life at first. From 

 these instances, and from those related before, of the girls at Oppido, and the 

 hogs at Soriano, and from several others of the same kind, wc may conclude, 

 that long fasting is always attended with great thirst, and total loss of appetite. 

 From every inquiry I found that the great shock of the 5th of February was 

 from the bottom upwards, and not like the subsequent ones, which in general 

 have been horizontal and vorticose. A circumstance worth remarking, and 

 which was the same on the whole coast of the part of Calabria that had been 

 most affected by the earthquake, is, that a small fish called cicirelli, resembling 

 what we call in England white-bait, but of a greater size, and which usually lie 

 at the bottom of the sea, buried in the sand, have been ever since the com- 

 mencement of the earthquakes, and continue still to be, taken near the surface, 

 and in such abundance, as to be the common food of the poorest sort of people; 

 whereas, before the earthquakes, this fish was rare, and reckoned among the 

 greatest delicacies. All fish, in general, have been taken in greater abundance, 

 and with much greater facility, in those parts since they have been afflicted by 

 earthquakes than before, f constantly asked every fisherman I met with on the 

 coast of Sicily and Calabria, if this circumstance was true ; and was as constantly 

 answered in the affirmative ; but with such emphasis, that it must have been very 

 extraordinary. I suppose, that either the sand at the bottom of the sea may 

 have been heated by the volcanic fire under it ; or that the continual tremor of 

 the earth has driven the fish out of their strong holds, just as an angler, when 

 he wants a bait, obliges the worms to come out of the turf on a river side, by 

 trampling on it with his feet, which motion never fails in its effect, as I have 

 experienced very often myself. The officer who commanded in the citadel, and 

 who was there during the earthquake, assured me, that on the fatal 5th of Fe- 

 bruary, and the 3 following days, the sea, about a quarter of a mile from that 

 fortress, rose and boiled in a most extraordinary manner, and with a most horrid 

 and alarming noise, the water in the other parts of the Faro being perfectly calm. 

 This seems to point out exhalations or eruptions from cracks at the bottom of 

 the sea, which may very probably have happened during the violence of the 

 earthquakes ; all of which, I am convinced have here a volcanic origin. I per- 

 fectly understood the nature of the formidable wave that was said to have been 

 boiling hot, and had certainly proved fatal to the baron of the country, the 

 prince of Scilla, who was swept off the shore into the sea by this wave, with 



