106 HORMUZD RASSAM, ESQ., 
have occurred at Fez, during the great Lisbon earthquake, 
as also in Jamaica and Java at other periods, 
‘“*Not far from Soriano, the houses of which were levelled 
to the ground by the great shock of February, a small valley, 
containing a beautiful olive grove, called Fra Ramondo, 
underwent a most extraordinary revolution. Innumerable 
fissures first traversed the river plain in all directions, and 
absorbed the water until the argillaceous substratum became 
soaked, so that a great part of it was reduced to a state of 
fluid paste. Strange alterations in the outline of the ground 
were the consequence, as the soil to a great depth was easily 
moulded into any form. In addition to this change the ruins 
of the neighbouring hills were precipitated into the ~hollow 
and while many olives were uprooted, others remained 
growing on the fallen masses and inclined at various angles. 
The small river Caridi was entirely concealed for many days; 
and when at length it reappeared it had shaped itself a new 
channel.”* 
It is said again that—“On the mainland near Lima and 
on the neighbouring island of San Lorenzo, Mr. Darwin 
found proofs that the ancient bed of the sea had been raised 
to the height of more than 80 feet above water within the 
human epoch, strata having been discovered at that altitude 
containing pieces of cotton thread and plaited rush, together 
with seaweed and marine shells. The same author learnt 
from Mr. Gill, a civil engineer, that he discovered in the 
interior near Lima, between Casma and Huaraz, the dried-up 
channel of a large river, sometimes worn through solid rock, 
which instead of continually ascending towards its source, 
has in one place a steep downward slope in that direction, 
for a ridge or line of hills has been uplitted directly across 
the bed of the stream, which is now arched. By these 
changes the water has been turned into some other course, 
and a district once fertile and still covered with ruins and 
bearing the marks of ancient cultivation has been converted 
into a desert.” 
In ancther place it is mentioned that—*“ At several thousand 
places in Jamaica, the earth is related to have opened. On 
the north of the island several plantations with their inhabi- 
tants were swallowed up, and a lake appeared in their place, 
covering about a thousand acres, which afterwards dried up, 
leaving nothing but sand and gravel, without the least sign 
that there had ever been a house ora tree there. Several 
* Vol ii. page 129. T Vol. ii, page 158. 
