the Earthquakes in Italy in 17 S3. 1S5 
houfe, all lyc in one confided heap of ruins. An inhabitant 
of Cafal Nuovo told me, he was on a hill at the moment of the 
earthquake, overlooking the plain, when feeling the {hock, and 
turning towards the plain, in (lead of the town, 'lie faw in the 
place of it a thick cloud of white duff like fmoke, the natural 
effect of the crufhing of the buildings, and the mortar flying off. 
From hence I went through the towns of Caftellace and 
Miliculco (both in the fame condition as Cafal Nuovo) to 
Terra Nuova, fituated in the fame lovely plain, between two 
rivers, which, with the torrents from the mountains, have, in 
the courfe of ages, cut deep and wide chafms in the foft l'andy 
clay foil of which the whole plain is compofed. At Terra 
Nuova the ravine or chafm is not lefs than 500 feet deep, and 
three quarters of a mile broad. What caufes a confufion in all 
the accounts of the phenomena produced by this earthquake in 
the plain, is the not having fufficiently explained the nature of 
the foil and fituation. They tell you, that a town has been thrown 
a mile from the place where it flood, without mentioning a 
word of a ravine ; that woods and corn-fields had been removed 
in the fame manner, when in truth it is but upon a large fcale, 
what we fee every day upon a fmaller, when pieces of the fides 
of hollow ways, having been undermined by rain waters, are de- 
tached into the bottom by their own weight. Here, from the 
great depth of the ravine, and the violent motion of the earth, 
two huge portions of the earth, on which a great part of the 
town flood, confifling of fome hundreds of houfes, were de- 
tached into the ravine, and nearly acrofs it, about half a mile 
from the place where they flood ; and what is moft extraordi- 
nary, feveral of the inhabitants of thofe houfes, who had 
taken this lingular leap in them, w*ere neverthelefs dug out 
alive, and fome unhurt. I fpoke to one myfelf who had taken 
this extrordinnry journey in his houfe, with his wife and a 
Vol. LXXIII. B b maid. 
