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or concussions, there was also a considerable rising and sinking of the whole 
island as to the level of the sea, 
« But that which I principally note under this head is, that a good part of the 
said island tumbled down and was sunk into the sea, which gives an account 
how many parts of the earth come to be buried under ground and displaced 
from their former situations, and thence how ships anchors, bones, teeth, &c. 
that have sometimes been digged up from great depths, may have come to be 
there buried. 
“ It is very remarkable also, that this eruption sent up into the air great 
clouds of dust and smoke, which for the most part must soon fall down again 
into the sea, or contiguous parts of the island. This will give a probable ac¬ 
count how the layers of the superficial parts of the earth may come to be 
made; for the bigger part of this dust must come down to the bottom first, 
and settle to a certain thickness and make a bed of gravel, then will follow 
beds of coarse sand, then beds of finer and finer sand, and last of clays or 
moulds of several sorts ; again much of that which fell upon the higher parts 
of the island, will, by the rivers, be washed down into the vales, and there 
produce the like beds or layers of several kinds, and so bury many of the parts 
that were before on the surface. Thus plants and vegetable substances may 
come to be buried, and the bones and teeth of the carcasses of dead animals: 
these may also sometimes be buried under beds or crusts of stone, when the 
parts that thus make the layers chance to be mixed with such subterraneous 
substances as carry with them a petrifying quality. 
“ What is most remarkable in these earthquakes in the Leeward islands, is, 
that they have all happened to places not far distant from the sea, or even 
under the sea itself, though the eruptions have been, for the most part on 
the land. So that there doth seem to be somewhat of reason to conjecture 
as Signior Bottom in his Pyrologia Topographica , that the saline quality of 
the sea-water may conduce to the producing of the subterraneous fermentation 
with the sulphureous minerals there placed, which the experiment lately 
here exhibited at a meeting of this society, does yet make more probable ^ 
for by that it was evident, that the mixing of spirit of salt with iron, did 
produce such a fermentation as did produce a vapour or steam, which by an 
actual flame was immediately fired like gunpowder *, and if inclosed, would. 
* This is the first account we have of the production of inflammable air (Hydrogen Gas). 
