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Ch. XXIX.] 



EARTHQUAKE OF CALABRIA, 1783. 



115 



tliem 



into four classes, according to 

 their degree of violence. From liis Avork, it appears tliat, in 

 tlie year 1783, the number was 949, of Avhicli 501 were 

 shocks of the first degree of force ; and in the following year 

 there were 151, of which 98 were of the first magnitude. 



ma 



Napl 



satisfied with these and other observations, sent a deputation 

 from their own body into Calabria, before the shocks had 

 ceased, who were accompanied by artists instructed to illus- 

 trate by drawings the physical changes of the district, and 

 the state of ruined towns and edifices. Unfortunately these 

 artists were not very successful in their representations of 

 the condition of the countiy, particularly when they attempted 

 to express, on a large scale, the extraordinary revolutions 

 which many of the great and minor river-courses underwent. 

 But some of the plates published by the Academy are valu- 

 able ; and as they are little known, I shall frequently avail 

 myself of them to illustrate the facts about to be described."^ 

 In addition to these Nea]3olitan sources of information, 

 our comitryman. Sir William Hamilton, surveyed the district, 

 not without some personal risk, before the shocks had 

 ceased ; and his sketch, published in the Philosophical 

 Transactions, supplies many facts that would otherwise have 

 been lost. He has explained, in a rational manner, many 

 events which, as related in the language of some eye-wdt- 



^ellous and incredible. Dolomieu also 

 examined Calabria during the catastrophe, and wrote 



mar 



an 



mistake 



Hamilton had fallen, who supposed that a part of the tract 

 shaken had consisted of volcanic tuff. It is, indeed, a cir- 

 cumstance which enhances the geological interest of the 

 commotions which so often modify the surface of Calabria, 

 that they are confined to a country where there are neither 

 ancient nor modern rocks of volcanic or trappean origin; 

 so that at some future time, when the era of disturbance 

 shall have passed by, the cause of fo 



•mer 



■*f 



Istoria de' Eenomeni del Tremoto, 



&c. iieir An. 1783, posta in 1 



uce 



dalla 



Real. Accad. &c. di Nap. Napoli, 

 1783, fol. 



I 2 



