1821.J Submersion of E $, 
ed imitation of the celebrated Junius ; 
and if getting into a scrape in conse¬ 
quence, bad been an evidence of suc¬ 
cess, I should not have been without a 
plea. At that period l do not recollect 
to have either heard or read of the name 
of General Lee, as the supposed author 
of Junius ; I have no doubt, however, 
of his having been then resident in 
England ; and a few years since, when 
Dr. GirdJestone published his pam¬ 
phlet, I applied to Sir Charles Ban¬ 
bury, for information on that point, and 
was by him directed to a person, who 
assured me of the fact from his own 
personal knowledge. 1 nevertheless 
assigned a variety of sufficient reasons, 
to my own conviction at least, that Lee 
could not possibly have written those 
letters. He abandoned his country— 
and what rational motive could there 
be, on either side, for concealment, had 
he been the writer ? That some pow¬ 
erful motive of that kind does yet sub¬ 
sist, is sufficiently evident, because no¬ 
body doubts that the late king, and 
various accredited political persons, 
were in the secret, and that Junius, in 
the ultimate, made his peace at court. 
Somers Town. John Lawrence. 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
SUBMERSION of the Village of steon, 
in bohemia, as reported in a Letter 
from M. WINKLER, dated April 
20 , 1820 . 
? I^IIE village of Siron, in the estate 
of Fermian, in Bohemia, was 
situated on a declivity, in the NE. of 
the valley of Eger, about a league above 
Saatz, partly near the river, and partly 
in a gorge that descended towards the 
Eger. "On a hill that forms a bor¬ 
der to this gorge, were the church 
and parsonage house, and the village 
descended aiong the gorge parallel to ' 
the Eger, towards the NW. This hill 
contains beds of an earthy pit-coal 
that spread through the country, and 
are covered with strata of sand and al¬ 
luvion. The Eger flows at tile dis¬ 
tance of about 200 toises from Stron. 
Previous to the accident, it formed a 
bay alongside of Stron, edged with hills 
of moving sand, not very lofty, but 
steep. On the higher part of the de¬ 
clivity were a number of springs that 
were quickly lost in the sands. 
These springs have proved the cause 
of a calamity which in these countries, 
where glaciers and earthquakes are 
unknown, may be deemed unique in its 
kind. The water of the spring's has 
Monthly Mag. No. 357. 
ron, in Bohemia. 25 
gradually perforated large subterranean 
cavities in the strata of sand, so that, 
at length, the whole surface of the soil, 
with the church, the houses, and the 
gardens, rested only on some detached 
columns of sand that were daily di¬ 
minishing. Whether subterranean 
combustions of pit-coal may not have 
co-operated, is a point hitherto unde¬ 
cided. 
For a length of time the earth had 
been sinking in different places. Cre¬ 
vices appeared in the walls of the build¬ 
ings ; the doors would no longer shut, 
and some weeks ago, a great noise was 
heard in the middle of the night. The 
people are roused from their sleep; a 
singular movement of the earth advanc¬ 
ing forward, and, at the same time, 
sinking, is observed. The inhabitants 
flee, remove their cattle, &c., and at 
some distance from the village, wait 
tor the morning. Its appearance dis¬ 
plays an image of destruction ; half of 
the village had disappeared : where no 
houses had ever been,roofs and chim nies 
were seen rising from the ground. The 
hill, the church, and the parsonage 
were no longer to be found,.and at some 
distance appeared a chaos of parcels of 
eartii intermixed with ruins and cre¬ 
vices. 
The church is eighty feet below the 
site it formerly occupied ; it is divided 
into two, half of it buried- in ruins. 
Here lies a steeple overthrown, and 
there a confused medley of statues, 
images of saints, stables, &c. The 
river is thrown out of its channel, and 
where it formed a bay, there is now an 
accumulation of earth. The church¬ 
yard is thrown into a shapeless heap, 
and the whole territory bears another 
aspect. In different patches are seen 
layers of a fat earth, over which the 
sand has glided. It seems that the 
Eger must have crumbled the props on 
which the hill stood, as they had ever 
an inclination towards the river. 
A number of things have been fortu¬ 
nately preserved, and, with the excep¬ 
tion of some cattle, no lives were lost. 
Fifteen houses are yet standing, but the 
soil is insecure, and the downfal will 
probably be universal. 
I was at a loss, at first, to recognize 
the country, and from the inhabitants 
I could only learn that they had been 
disturbed by a tremendous crash, and 
that they sought refuge by flight. 
The people were rich ; their loss, in 
point of furniture, is not so considerable 
as in the superficies of the soil. 
D 
The 
