j;4 
EARTHaUAKES. 
A'liich was probably a portion of the plain, detached 
bir 
earthquake at some former period ; it was in 
fifty feet, and abont four hundredJ^||jj|ij| 
lasis..- It was well attested, Sir 
two hundred and 
diameter at its basis.. ,t >,oo .... 
observes, that this mountain travelled down the 
nearly four miles, having been put in motion by * ’ 
shock. I'he abundance of rain wliich fell at that 
the great weight of the newly-detached piece.s of 
wliidi w'ere heaped up at its back ; the nature of 
and particularly its situation on a declivity ; in his '-f 
satisfactorily accouht for this phenomenon. Tlie r'',’' 
Cariati showed him tw'o girls, one of the age ‘.y 
sixteen years, who had remained eleven days witho'*- 
under the ruins of a house in Oppido ; and the 
eleven years of age, w'ho had been under the 
cumstances six days, but in a very confined and di-'’^ 
posture. 
• Sir William 
describes the 
nd 
port cf Messina, 
town, in their half-ruined state, when view-ed by ‘ / 
light, as strikingly picturesque. On landing, ‘J.,/' 
assured by several fishermen, that, during tlie etu'l*'’ 
of the 5th of February, at night, the sand near they 
hot, and that in many parts they saw fire issue b 
earth. ' This had been often repeated to him in 
brian plain ; and the idea he entertained was, that 
halations which Issued during the violent comnit>b^j.p 
tire earth, were full of electric fire, just as the 
volcanoes is constantly observed to be during 
tion.5; for he did not, during any part of his tour, l“| 
an indication of volcanic . matter having issued rl 
fissures of the 
earth. He was, therefore, convint^®^j 
the whole damage had been done by exlialations 
pours only. In this city, where they had had st> 
experience of earthquakes, he was told, that 
and birds are, in a greater or less degree, more 
of an approaching shock of an earthquake than ,jt fj 
being ; but that geese, above all, were the sooU 
if-v; 
the most alarmed at the approach of a shock : jii' 
water, they quit it inim.ediately, and they cannot o 
into it for some time after. 
The force of tlie earthquakes, although $(1^ 
Messina, and at Reggio on the opposite side 
