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fliall content myfelf with eftablifhing the certainty of 
a fad:, which tends fo greatly to confirm it. 
83. The earthquakes that have infefted fome of 
the^owns in the neighbourhood of Quito, have not 
only been incomparably more violent than that which 
deftroyed Lifbon, but they feem to have exceeded 
that alfo which deftroyed Lima and Callao. In 
* Lifbon, many of the houfes were left ftandin?, 
although few of them were lei's than four or five 
ftories high. At Lima alio, it is only faid, that <c all 
“ the buildings, great and fmall, or at leaft the 
“ greateft part of them, were deftroyed.” Callao 
likewiie, as it appears from the accounts we have of 
it, had many houfes left unhurt by the earthquake, 
till the wave came, which overwhelmed the whole 
town, and threw down every thing that lay in its 
way. All thefe effeds feem to be greatly fhort of 
thofe produced by an earthquake that happened at 
Latacunga, in the year ] 6p 8, when the whole town, 
confifting of more than fix hundred houfes, was en- 
tirely deftroyed in lefs than three minutes time, a 
part of one only efcaping; notwithftanding that the 
houfes there are never built more than one ftory high, 
in order, if poftible, to avoid thefe dangers. Am- 
bato, a village about the fame Cze as Latacunga, to- 
gether with a great part of Riobamba, another town 
in the - fame neighbourhood, were alfo entirely de- 
ftroyed by the fame earthquake, and fome others 
were either deftroyed, or received confiderable damage 
* See Philof. Tranf. vol. xlix. p. 403. where it is faid, “ of 
“ the dwelling-houfes, there might be about one fourth of them 
“ that tumbled.” 
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