tlarthquaJces in Sicili/. ^iS 



wa? proved by aJl the phenomena mentioned in the beginning. 

 I will not be guided by the injuries suffered in different parts, 

 for these spring from a comphcation of causes ; from the soil, 

 its greater or less capacity of receiving and com^nunicating 

 motion J from the manner in which it presents itself to the 

 progressive motion, and from the state of the edifices. These 

 circumstances may sometimes produce anomalies which easily 

 deceive those wlio do not bestow in the examination of them 

 the attention which they deserve ; but without fear of error 

 1 may say, that in j^cneral the shock was much the most for- 

 cible on the northern shore, and at a liltle distance from it; 

 and that it went on irradually diminishing towards the interi- 

 or. The moving force, then, must have been in operation 

 somewhere under the sea opposite this part of the Island. 

 Naso was almost entirely ruined; Patti, and all the towns 

 about Capos Orlando and Calava, and wliich are nearer Eolia 

 were considerably dama etl. Some very small, thinly in- 

 habited towns lost little, because they had little to lose; others 

 were insoine measure defended by their situations. Palermo, 

 at the bottom of a bay which curves towards these burning 

 islands, and surrounded by largje and high mountains on the 

 other side, was exposed to the whole force of the motion 

 against it; this it was, together with the degraded state of its 

 buildings, which brought such ruin upon tliis beaulilul city. 

 Every thing seemed then to announce to us, that the most ex- 

 pansive vapours which proceed from the burning furnaces of 

 Eolia, in developing their immense volumes, uiged against 

 the sides of those cavities which once contained the matter 

 of which all these islands are formed, produced the motion 

 that struck obliquely against Sicily, and moving along the 

 shore towards the west, spread despair throughout Paleririo. 

 After the shock of the tifth, their motion was more free ; and 

 they were heard murmuring under the soil near our island, 

 seeking an outlet from the obscure caverns in which they 

 were generated, but not propagating ibeir motion to any con- 

 siderable distance. Tlie course of that of the sevcnih was 

 in the same direction with that of the fifth ; but that of the thir- 

 ty-first was in a direction directly opposite, since it was felt 

 at Messina, and not at Palermo The undulations were de- 

 termine ' by the horizontal direction of the motion ; the per- 

 pe/j(/icular shocks, by a force acting from below upwards, 

 whicJi supposes a much greater depth in the situation of the 

 acting force, than the other, without ever beina in anv case 



