the Earthquakes hi Italy in 178^. 20 1 
earthquakes than before. I conflantly a Iked every fifherman I 
met with on the coaff of Sicily and Calabria, if this circutn- 
flance was true ; and was as conflantly anfwered in the affir- 
mative ; but with fuch emphafis, that it mud: have been very 
extraordinary. 1 fuppofe, that either the land at the bottom 
of the fea may have been heated by the volcanic fire under it ; 
or that the continual tremor of the earth has driven the fifh 
out of their flrong holds, juft as an angler, when he wants a 
bait, obliges the worms to come out of the turf on a river 
fide, by trampling on it with his feet, which motion never 
fails in its effect, as I have experienced very often myfelf. I 
found the citadel here had not received anv material damage 
but was in the fame ffate as I had left it fifteen years ago. The 
Lazaret has fome cracks in it, like thofeon the quay, and from 
a like caufe. The port has not received any damage from the 
earthquakes. The officer who commanded in the citadel, and 
who was there during the earthquake, affured me, that on the 
fatal 5th of February, and the three following days, the fea, 
about a quarter of a mile from that fortrefs, role and boiled in 
a moft extraordinary manner, and with a moll: horrid hnd 
alarming noife, the water in the other parts of the Faro being 
perfectly calm. This feems to point out exhalations or erup- 
tions from cracks at the bottom of the fea, which may very 
probably have happened during the violence of the earthquakes ; 
all of which, I am convinced, have here a volcanic origin. 
Gn the 17th of May I left Medina, where I had been kindly 
and hofpitably treated, and proceeded in my Speronara along 
the Sicilian coaff to the point of the entrance of the Faroj 
where I went afhore, and found a pried who had been there 
the night between the 5th and 6th of February, when the 
great wave pahed over that point, carried off boats, and above 
Vol. LX XIII. D d twenty- 
