800 Mr Tartt on the Earthquakes in South Carolina, 
and with the lava ejected by the eruption. Radicofani is a 
small miserable village or horgo near this place, and surmount- 
ed by a ruined citadel, built on elevated basaltic rocks. 
As I knovtT that this volcanic district has lately been visited 
by an abl6 mineralogist of Geneva, I hope to be able to send 
you a more particular account of it, if you shall deem it worthy 
of your attention. 
Edinburgh, 
10th February 1820. 
Art. XV. — An Account of several Shocks of Earthquakes 
and other Remai'kable Phenomena^ ivhick occurred in South 
Carolina ^previous to the Destruction of Laguira and Carac- 
cas, and the Eruption of the Soifriere, By Mr Tartt. 
Communicated by the Author. 
There is not, I believe, any well attested account of an 
earthquake having occurred in South Carolina, from the period 
of its discovery to the year 1811 ; and as there are none of 
those volcanic appearances and remains in its vicinity, that usu- 
ally indicate the immediate seats of such phenomena, it is rea- 
sonable to conclude, that the earthquakes of 1811 and 1812, 
were merely vibrations attendant upon the more alarming con- 
vulsions, by which the destruction of Laguira and Caraccas, 
and the eruption of the Spufriere, were produced. 
The former, it will be recollected, occasioned the loss of from 
fifteen to twenty thousand lives ; and the trembling of the 
earth’s surface that took place in different directions about the 
same time, was probably more extensive than any previously 
upon record. 
I was then in Carolina : and as it appears that the only assis- 
tance we can contribute to science, during our ignorance of the 
precise causes of these sublime efforts of Nature, is by correctly 
detailing the facts attending them, I have been induced to col- 
lect the following memoranda. 
The close of the year 1811 was accompanied, in the climates 
I speak of, by some of the most awful phenomena to which our 
system is liable. We may pass over the appearance of the co- 
met and an eclipse of the sun as merely coincident, and witness- 
