216 Earthquakes in Sicily. 



Art. II.- — An account of the Earthquakes which occurred in 

 Sicily, in March, 1823. By Sig. Abate Ferrara, Pro- 

 fessor of Nat. Philos. in the University of Catania, &cc. Sec. 



[Translated for the Boston Journal of Philosophy and the Arts, by 

 W. S. Emerson.]* 



On Wednesday, the 5th of March, 1823, at 26m. after 5 p. m. 

 Sicily suffered a violent shock of an earthquake. I was 

 standing in the large plain before the palace, in a situation 

 where I was enabled to preserve that tranquillity of mind 

 necessary for observation. The first shock was indistinct, 

 but tending from below upwards ; the second was undulatory, 

 but more vigorous, as though a new impulse had been added 

 to the first, doubling its force ; the third was less strong, but 

 of the same nature ; a new exertion of the force rendered the 

 fourth equal on the whole to the second ; the fifth, like the 

 first, had an evident tendency upwards. Their duration was 

 between sixteen and seventeen seconds ; the time was pre- 

 cisely marked by the second hands of a watch which I had 

 with me. The direction was from north-east to south-west. 

 Many persons who ran towards me from the south-west at the 

 time of this terrible phenomenon, were opposed by the re- 

 sistance of the earth. The spear of the vane on the top of 

 the new gate connected with the palace, and upon which I 

 fixed my eyes, bowed in that direction, and remained so 

 until the sabbath, when it fell ; it was inclined to the south- 

 west in an angle of 20°. The waters in the great basin of 

 the Botanical Garden, as was told me by an eye witness, were 

 urged up in the same direction by the second shock ; and a 

 palm tree, thirty feet high, in the same garden, was seen to 

 bow its long leafless branches alternately to the north-east 

 and south-west, almost to the ground. The clocks in the 

 observatory, which vibrated from north to south, and from 

 east to west, were stopped, because the direction of the shock 

 cut obliquely the plane of their respective vibrations ; and 



* It was our intention to have procured a translation, for the American 

 Journal, of this memoir, of which a copy, in the original Italian, was 

 transmitted to us by Professor Ferrara, but we gladly avail ourselves of 

 that which has already appeared in the Boston Journal for September 

 1824. Editor. 



