Chap. 95.] VENTS IN THE EAETH. 121 



island Cea it has seized on 30,000 paces, which were sud- 

 denly torn off, with many persons on them. In Sicily also 

 the half of the city of Tyndaris, and all the part of Italy 

 which is wanting^ ; in like manner it carried off Eleusina in 

 Boeotia-. 



CHAP. 95. (93.) — or tents' in the eaeth. 



But let us say no more of earthquakes and of whatever 

 •nay be regarded as the sepulchres of cities "*; let us rather 

 speak of the wonders of the earth than of the crimes of 

 nature. But, by Hercules ! the history of the heavens them- 

 selves would not be more difficult to relate : — the abundance 

 of metals, so various, so rich, so prolific, rising up' during so 

 many ages ; when, throughout all the world, so much is, 

 every day, destroyed by tire, by waste, by shipwreck, by 

 wars, and bv frauds; and while so much is consumed by 

 luxury and by such a number of people : — the figures on 

 gems, so multiplied in their forms ; the variously-coloured 

 spots on certain stones, and the whiteness of others, excluding 

 everything except light : — the virtues of medicinal springs, 

 and the perpetual fires bursting out in so many places, for 

 so many ages : — the exhalation of deadly vapours, either 

 emitted from caverns^, or from certain unhealthy districts ; 

 some of them fatal to birds alone, as at Soracte, a district 

 near the city^ ; others to all animals, except to man*, while 



1 " Spatium intelligit, jfretumve, quo Sicilia nunc ab Italia dispescitur." 

 Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 419. 



2 See Strabo, ix. 



3 " Spiraciila." ^ " Busta urbium." 



5 " Suboriens," as M. Alexandre explains it, "renascens;" Lemaire, 

 i420. 



^ " Scrobibus ;" " aut quum terra fossis excavatur, ut in Pomptina 

 palude, aut per natxirales hiatus." Alexandre in Lemaire, i. 420. 



7 This circumstance is mentioned by Seneca, Nat. Quaest. vi. 28, as oc- 

 curring " pluribus Italiffi loeis ; " it may be ascribed to the exhalations from 

 volcanos being raised up into the atmosphere. It does not appear that 

 there is, at present, any cavern in Mount Soracte which emits mephitic 

 vapours. But the circumstance of Soracte being regarded sacred to 

 ApoUo, as yre learn from our author, vii. 2, and from Virgil, ^n. xi. 785, 

 may lead us to conjecture that something of the kind may formerly have 

 existed there. 



8 The author may probably refer to the weU-known Grotto del Cane, 



