162 



MOUNTAINS SIIATTEEED. 



[Ch. XXX. 



Jamaica 



to have opened. On the north of the island, several plan- 

 tations, with their inhabitants, were swallowed np, and a 

 lake appeared in their place, covering above 1,000 acres, 

 which afterwards dried up, leaving nothing bnt sand and 

 gravel, without the least sign that there had ever been a 



house or a tree there. 



tenements 



buried under land-slips ; and one plantation was removed 

 half a mile from its place, the crops continuing to grow 

 apon it uninjured. Between Spanish Town and Sixteen-mile 



Walk, the hi "" 



fell in, stopped the passage of the river and flooded the latter 

 place for 9 days, so that the people ' concluded it had been 

 sunk as Port Eoyal was.' But the flood at length subsided, 

 for the river had found some new passage at a great distance. 



shattered. — The Blue and other of the highest 

 mountains are declared to have been strangely torn and rent. 

 They appeared shattered and half -naked, no longer affording 

 a fine green prospect, as before, but stripped of their woods 

 and natural verdure. The rivers on these mountains first 

 ceased to flow for about 24 liours^ and then brought down 

 into the sea, at Port Eoyal and other places, several hundred 

 thousand tons of timber, which looked like floating islands 

 on the ocean. The trees were in P-eneral barked, most of 



Mountains 



their branches having been torn off in the descent. It is 

 particularly remarked in this, as in the narratives of so many 



number 



Hans 



coast during the shocks. The correspondents of Sir 

 Sloane, who collected with care the accounts of eye-witnesses 

 of the catastrophe, refer constantly to subsidences^ and some 

 supposed the whole of Jamaica to have sunk down."^ 



^fiections 



->/ 



since the close of 



seventeenth century. — I have now only enumerated some few of 

 the earthquakes of the last and present centuries, respecting 

 which facts illustrative of geological enquiries are on record. 

 Even if my limits permitted, it would be an unprofitable task 

 to examine all the obscure and ambiguous narratives of 



^ Phil. Trans. 1694. 



I 



\ 

 \ 



I 



I 



r 



i^ 



s 



f 



i^' 



tu- 



f 

 iliort: 



lie sli' 

 aredt 



L- 



Tripoli, 

 to tie: 



id to' 



ofsacL 



purpose 

 to folloi 



^ U 



Wi 



Tl 



I'.: 



Ian 



it- 





rm 



ff' 





f<i' 



^ ^ 



tow,' 



