124 EAETIIQUAKES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. [Ch. XXIX. 



tliat honses, trees, cattle and men were first eno-nlplied in an 

 instant, and then the sides of the fissures 



comm 



'6 



them 



We 



may 



mechanical force, a pavement com 



flags of stone shonld be raised up, and then allowed to fall 



resume 



its original position. If any small 

 pebbles happened to be lying on the line of contact^ of two 



erne 



flags, they w^ould fall into the opening when the pa 

 rose, and be swallowed up, so that no trace of them would 

 appear after the subsidence of the stones. In many instances, 

 individuals are said to have been swallowed up by one shock 



Ijg. 112. 



Fissures noar Jerocarnc, in Calabria, caused by the earthquake of 1783. 



and tlien thrown out again alive, together with large jets of 

 water, bj the shock which immediatelj succeeded. 



At Jerocarne, a country which, according to the Academi- 

 cians, was lacerated in a most extraordinary manner, the 

 fissures ran in every direction ' like cracks on a broken pane 



of 



glass.' 



(See fig. 112.) 



As we learn from Dolomieu that the direction of the new 

 chasms and fissures throughout Calabria was usually xoarallel 

 to the course of ravines and gorges pre-existing in their 

 neighbourhood, we may conclude that not a few of them 

 were due to a comparatively superficial movement of the 

 ground in a sideway direction. 



M 



