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epoch, f*: 

 imingpi 

 litk sea- 



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m 



rcr. Mr. Gil 



)r near Lima. 



h, iii?tf''''i of 

 in one plaft 



,f the streai 

 • ■• las beeB 



once 



fertile. 



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. seen aj 

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Ch. XXX.] 



QUITO, 1698.— SICILY, 1693. 



]. 5 9 



down abundance of bushes and trees, half burnt. 



The 



channel of the river being stopped up, the water overflowed 



some 



the streets^, so that fishes lay dead in them. All the fish in 

 the river^ except the carps^ were killed by the mud and 

 turbid Avater. A great number of drowned buffaloes, tigers, 

 rhinoceroses, deer, apes, and other wild beasts, were brought 

 down by the current ; and, ^ notwithstanding,' observes one 

 of the writers, ^that a crocodile is amphibious, several of 

 them were found dead among the rest.'"^ 



It is stated that seven hills bounding the river sank down; 

 by which must be meant, as by similar expressions in the 

 description of the Calabrian earthquakes, seven great land- 

 slips. These hills, descending some from one side of the 

 valley and some from the other, filled the channel, and the 



dammed 



waters then finding their way under the mass 

 thick and muddy. The Tangaran river was also 

 by nine hills, and in its channel were large quantities of drift 

 trees. Seven of its tributaries also are said to have been 

 ^covered up with earth.' A high tract of forest land, between 

 the two great rivers before mentioned, is described as having 

 been changed into an open country, destitute of trees, the 

 surface being spread over with a fine red clay. This part of 

 the account may, perhaps, merely refer to the sliding down 

 of woody tracts into the valleys, as happened to so many ex- 

 tensive vineyards and olive-grounds, in Calabria, in 1783. 

 The close j)acking of large trees in the Batavian river is 

 represented as very remarkable, and it attests in a striking 

 manner the destruction of soil bordering the valleys which 

 had been caused by floods and landslips. t 



Quito. 



Quito 



summit 



stream of water and mud 



issued from the broken sides of the hill.J 



mcily^ 1693.— Shocks of earthquakes spread over all Sicily 

 m 1693, and on the 11th of January the city of Catania 

 and 49 other places were levelled to the ground, and about 



1705. 



Hookers Posthumous Works, p. 437. f Phil. Trans. 1700. 



I Humboldt, Atl. Pit. p. 106 



