190 Sir william Hamilton’s Account of 
foil in the plain, at lead 500 feet higher, and at the diftance 
of about three quarters of a mile. I met with whole vine- 
yards in the fame order in the bottom, that had likewife taken 
the fame journey. As the banks of the ravine, from whence 
thefe pieces came, are. now bare and perpendicular, I perceived 
that the upper foil was a reddifh earth, and the under one 
a fandy white clay, very compact, and like a foft ftone ; the 
impulfe thefe huge malfes received, either from the violent 
motion of the earth alone, or that aflifted with the additional one 
of the' volcanic exhalations fet at liberty, feems to have aded 
with greater force on the lower and more compact ftratum than 
on the upper cultivated cruft : for I con handy obferved, where 
thefe cultivated illands lay (for fo they appeared to be on the 
barren bottom of the ravine) the under ftratum of compact 
clay had been driven fome hundred yards further, and lay in 
confufed blocks, and, as I obferved, many of thofe blocks were 
of a cubical form. The under foil having had a greater im- 
pulfe, and leaving the upper in its flight, naturally accounts 
for the order in which the trees, vineyards, and vegetation, 
fell and remain at prefent in the bottom of the ravine. This 
curious fad, I thought, deferved to be recorded, but is not ealily 
defcribed by words. When the drawings and plans of the 
Academy are publilhed, this account (impeded as it is) may, 
perhaps, have its utility : had my time permitted, I would 
certainly have taken a draughtfman with me into Calabria. 
In another part of the bottom of the ravine there is a moun- 
tain compofed of the fame clay foil, and which was probably a 
piece of the plain detached by an earthquake at tome former 
period; it is about 250 feet high, and about 400 feet diameter 
at its bails : this mountain, as is well attefted, has travelled, 
down the ravine near four miles, having been put in motion 
by 
