resigned themselves more calmly, or were found clasping the bodies of their children, as if endeavouring to shield them from the danger.

In his progress through the country, the effects of the earthquake presented themselves on every side, with the most melancholy and various features. Wretched hovels, erected for shelter, near heaps of ruins, with a few mournful figures sitting at the doors, all bearing some token of grief for the loss of near relatives; while maimed and crippled persons, men, women, and children, were seen crawling about on crutches. In the town of Polistena, 2100 out of 6000 inhabitants, lost their lives on the first fatal day; one nun, aged eighty, was the only survivor of a nunnery containing twenty-three, and she had been dug out of her cell alive! At Terra Nuova, 400 only escaped out of 1600. He saw two girls who had been rescued from the ruins of Oppido, after having been buried for many days. One, aged sixteen, had remained eleven days without any food; but an infant of six months old, which she had in her arms at the time of the accident, died on the fourth day. She was then recovering, but still very feeble, and had great difficulty in swallowing solid food; the other girl was only eleven years of age; she had been immured only six days, but in so cramped a position, that her hand had nearly worn a hole through her cheek, against which it had been pressed. Many instances are narrated of animals, as mules, dogs, hogs, and hens, having survived, after being buried, without food, for more than three weeks.

The city of MESSINA has been already mentioned as suffering by this calamity; its spacious harbour previously presented the appearance of a magnificent range of houses, built along its shore for more than a mile; the dwellings of the opulent inhabitants: these, with the greater part of the town, were rendered a heap of ruins. The progressive motion of the first shock, and the previous noise, however, allowed most of the inhabitants time to escape; so that only about 800 were killed by the fall of the buildings. The second, which did not take place till midnight, destroyed the rest of the town; and another, on the 7th, swallowed up the Mole, which was more than a mile in length. Here, however, as at Lisbon, the calamity was aggravated by a fire, which immediately broke out in all parts of the city, among the half-ruined edifices, which completed the destruction of all that the earthquake had spared.

Spallanzani, who visited the place nearly six years afterwards, found the city still a mass of ruins; and the streets, except some of the principal ones, impassable; the inhabitants had begun to rebuild their dwellings, and that on an improved plan, better calculated to obviate the effects of such another visitation; but, even at that distance of time, he describes them as hardly recovered from their consternation, and still chiefly residing in the temporary wooden sheds they had erected in the neighbourhood, for shelter after the catastrophe.

The total number of persons who perished on this occasion, either immediately from the shocks, or subsequently from an epidemic, which was caused by the stagnant waters, or by want of proper food, amounted, it is estimated,

to 60,000*, one-third only of which died from the subsequent effects, the rest being crushed in the ruins, ingulfed in the earth, or burnt by the fires.

On this, and on other occasions, the shocks were observed to have different characters, which have consequently been distinguished by separate names, as expressing the kind of motions, as vorticose, or acting in a whirling manner, horizontal and undulatory, like waves in water, or vertical and oscillating up and down. Most of those in this earthquake came from the west, were preceded by a rumbling noise, usually beginning with the horizontal motion, and ending in the vorticose, by which the buildings were chiefly overthrown. These various motions often produced very singular and capricious effects; in some streets of Monteleone only every other, or every third house, was destroyed, while the intermediate ones were hardly at all injured." In some cities, the most solid structures were thrown down, while the slighter ones escaped; and in others precisely the reverse took place. On some occasions, the first species of shock turned large stones quite round, without overthrowing them; and a great extent of the flat pavingstones of some streets were thrown up from the ground, and turned over, so as to fall in an inverted position. In some walls which had been overthrown, the stones were observed to have parted from the mortar, so as to leave an exact mould of their forms; while, in other instances, the mortar was ground to powder between the stones, proving a considerable motion to have been communicated to them before the wall fell. In the town of Terranuova, some houses were elevated by the shocks above their former position, while others, immediately adjoining, were sunk into the ground; and in more than one instance, buildings were even split in two, one half being raised up, while the other sank down, the two parts still adhering together.

In several streets, the earth was thrown up against the walls in embankments, as if done artificially. These, and other appearances, indicate a violent motion of the earth from below upwards; and where rents and chasms opened and closed alternately, it must have been caused by the ground being raised up, and then let fall again. In many instances, persons were swallowed up in such chasms, which completely closed over them, and were soon after thrown out again alive, amidst torrents of mud and water, on the occurrence of the next shock; the same thing has been mentioned as having occurred in Jamaica, in 1692. But it may easily be supposed that these individuals could not afterwards give any very distinct account of this unnatural interment; indeed, the effects produced on the minds and intellects of different persons by such terrors, are not the least interesting of the lessons taught by these events.

There are many battles recorded in history, in each of which a far greater number of persons were slain than ever died by any one natural visitation of volcano, earthquake, or pestilence; yet we read of the mutual slaughter of fellow-creatures with comparative indifference, forgetting that the moral guilt ought to excite more grief than the destruction of life alone; how much happier are those to be considered, who die by an earthquake, than those who fall on a battle-field!

or fear. In less than two days after the first blow, two thousand individuals were married, who had previously lived in unhallowed union. Many poor relations, who had hitherto been neglected, were sought for and acknowledged by their wealthy kindred; neglected children were owned, and legitimate restitutions were made, and law-suits terminated; while the timid and the depraved either accused themselves of conecaled crimes, owned to murders they had committed, others rushed to fresh excesses, and to the perpetration of new enormities.

An earthquake occurred in CHILI, on the 4th of April, 1819, of the effects and consequences of which Captain BASIL HALL gives some interesting particulars, in his work, intituled Extracts of a Journal on the Coast of Chili, &c. in 1821-22. From these we select the following.

"It was interesting to notice how constantly the earthquake occupied all people's thoughts at this place, however much they might seem to be engrossed by other objects. An English gentleman, residing at Copiapo, invited me to visit a family of his acquaintance, living in the undestroyed suburb Chimba, promising to show me the handsomest young woman in Chili. We found her very pretty and agreeable; but what entertained us was, her vehement desire to have a wider field for the display of her charms. the accounts she had heard from others, of the fashionable world of Santiago and Coquimbo, had so completely turned her head, that even earthquakes ceased to make the usual impression. I see,' said she, 'other people running out of their houses, full of terror, beating their breasts, and imploring mercy, and decency, of course, obliges me to do the same; but I feel no alarm; my thoughts are all at Coquimbo. We consoled her as well as we could; and, as she had spoken of earthquakes, asked her if there had been one lately. No,' she replied, not for some time. I really do not think I have felt one myself for three days. Somebody said there was one last night; but I knew nothing of it. I am tired of these earthquakes, and would never think of them again, if I were at dear Coquimbo.'

On putting the same question to another person, he said, they had not experienced one since April; meaning, as I discovered, April, 1819, two years and a half before; not conceiving we could be interested in such petty shocks as would not demolish a town.

"While listening to these descriptions, we were much struck with the occasional introduction of minute characteristic circumstances. One of the party, for instance, was describing the effect of a severe shock, which, he said, happened at four o'clock. Oh, no,' said another, it was later, I assure you.' 'Indeed, it was not,' replied the first, 'do not you remember we were playing at bowls at the time, and when the sound was heard, I stopped playing, and you called out to me to look what o'clock it was.'

"Upon another occasion, our host said, 'I was just going

to look what the hour was at which one of those sounds was first heard, when my attention was diverted from the watch by a hideous scream of terror from a person near me. He was such a little insignificant fellow, that I could not conceive such a yell could come from him; and so we all forgot the shock, in quizzing this little mannikin.'

The quickness with which natives of countries exposed to frequent earthquakes feel them, when strangers are not aware of their existence, is also mentioned by the same gentleman.

In the course of a long walk which our party took after dinner, an earthquake was felt. We were walking slowly along, when the gentlemen stopped, and one of them seeing us look surprised at their doing so, cried out, Temblor, (Earthquake.) A sound like distant thunder was then heard for about a quarter of a minute; but it was impossible to say from whence it proceeded; and, though conscious that there was something unusual in the noise, I cannot say exactly in what respect it was particular. The residents declared that they felt the tremor; but none of us were sensible of any motion. This was the fifth occasion, since my arrival in the country, on which I had been present at earthquakes, without ever feeling any of them in the slightest degree."

An earthquake commenced in Chili on the 19th of November, 1822, the first shocks of which were felt, at the same moment, over a distance of 1200 miles, and the coast, for a length of 100 miles from Valparaiso, was raised more than three feet above its former level; part of the bed of the sea remained dry at high water, and there is reason to believe that a permanent change of surface, with respect to elevation, was effected over 100,000 square miles.

The shocks continued to the end of the ensuing September, and, even at that distance of time, two days never passed without one, and often two or three were felt in the course of twenty-four hours.

The following account of the effects experienced on this occasion are narrated by Mrs. Graham, in her Journal of a Residence in Chili, and convey a vivid idea of such an event; the authoress was at Quintero about thirty miles from Valparaiso.—

"November 20th.-Yesterday after dinner, Glennie having fallen into a sound sleep in his arm-chair by the fire-side, Mr. Bennet and I, attracted by the fineness of the evening, took our seats to the veranda, overlooking the bay; and for the first time since my arrival in Cuili, I saw it lighten; the lightning continued to play over the Andes until after dark, when a delightful and calm moonlight night followed a quiet and moderately warm day. We returned reluctantly to the house on account of the invalid, and were sitting quietly conversing, when at a quarter past ten, the house received a violent shock, with a noise like the explosion of a mine; and Mr. Bennet starting up ran out, exclaiming An earthquake, an earthquake; for God's sake, follow me! I, feeling more for Glennie than any thing, and fearing the night-air for him, sat still: he, looking at me to see what I would do, did the same; until the vibration still increasing, the chimneys fell, and I saw the walls of the house open. Mr. Bennet again cried from without, 'For God's sake, come away from the house! So we rose and went to the veranda, meaning of course to go by the steps; but the vibration increased with such violence, that hearing the fall of a wall behind us, we jumped down from the little platform to the ground; and were scarcely there, when the motion of the earth changed from a quick vibration to a rolling like that of a ship at sea, so that it was with diffi culty that Mr. Bennet and I supported Glennie. The shock lasted three minutes; and by the time it was over, every body in and about the house had collected on the lawn, expecting two persons, one the wife of a mason, who was shut up in a small room which she could not open; and the other Carillo, who in escaping from his room by the wall which fell, was buried in the ruins, but happily preserved by the lintel falling across him.

"Never shall I forget the horrible sensation of that night! In all other convulsions of nature, we feel or fancy that some exertion may be made to avert or mitigate danger; but from an earthquake there is neither shelter nor escape the mad 'disquietude' that agitates every heart, and looks out in every eye, are too awful to be described. Amid the noise of the destruction before and around us, I heard the lowings of the cattle all the night through: and I heard the screaming of the sea-fowl, which ceased not till morning. There was not a breath of air, yet the trees were so agitated that their topmost branches seemed on the point of touching the ground. I got a man to hold a light, and venture with me to the inner rooms to fetch medicine. A second and a third shock had by this time taken place, but so much less violent than the first, that we had reasonable hopes that the worst was over, and we proceeded through the ruined sitting-rooms to cross the court where the wall had fallen, and as we reached the top of the ruins, another smart shock seemed to roll them from under our feet; at length we reached the first door of the sleepingapartments, and on entering I saw the furniture displaced from the walls, but paid little attention to it; in the second, however, the displacing was more striking, and then it seemed to me that there was a regularity in the disposal of every thing; this was still more apparent in my own room, but it seemed in all to have been moved in the same direction. The night still continued serene, and though the moon went down early, the sky was light, and there was a faint aurora-australis. It was now twelve o'clock; the earth was still at unrest, and shocks accompanied by noises like the explosion of gunpowder, or rather like those accompanying the jets of fire from a volcano, returned every two minutes; and then, wearied out, I fell asleep; but a little before two, a loud explosion and a tremendous shock roused every one, and a horse and pig broke loose and came to take refuge among us. At four o'clock, there was another violent shock, and the interval had been filled with a constant trembling, with now and then a sort of cross motion, the general direction of the undulation being North and South. Since that hour, though there has been a continued series of agitations, such as to spill water from a glass, and though the ground is still trembling under me, there has been nothing to alarm us,-At day-light, I went out of the tent

to look at the earth, the dew was on the grass, and all looked beautiful as if the night's agitation had not taken place. Half past eight P. M., the evening is as fine as possible, the moon is up, and shines beautifully over the lake and the bay, the stars and the aurora-australis are also brilliant, and a soft southerly breeze has been blowing since daylight.

Thursday, November 21.-At half-past two, A. M., I was awoke by a severe shock; at ten minutes before three, a tremendous one, which made us feel anew that utter helplessness which is so appalling.-Five others, in the course of the day, of different degrees of severity, were all that were in any degree alarming, but slight ones occurred every twenty or thirty minutes. I learn, not one house in the port remains habitable, though many retain their forms. There is not a living creature to be seen in the streets, but the hills are covered with wretches driven from their homes, whose mutual fears keep up mutual distractions. The ships in the harbour are crowded with people; no provisions are to be had; the ovens are ruined, so that the bakers cannot work. We had the same prophecy of a greater shock; that it did not happen has been attributed to the interposition of our Lady of Quintero, who has a chapel at the old house, and her image has long been an object of peculiar veneration. All the women of the neighbourhood flocked thither on the first dreadful night, and with shrieks, cries, and endearing names, entreated her to come to their assistance in the morning, when the priests were able to force the doors, obstructed by the fallen rubbish, they found her prostrate, with her head off, and several fingers broken; she was soon restored, however, to her pristine state, dressed in clean clothes, and placed in the attitude of benediction

before the door of her shattered fane.

"Don Fausto reports from Quillota, that the 19th being a festival of St. Martin, the tutelary saint, the marketplace was crowded with people, and booths, and bowers of roses and myrtles; under which all kinds of feasting, revelling, dancing, fiddling, masking, and every species of dissipation, or rather dissoluteness, was going on. The earthquake came !-and in an instant all was changed. Instead of the sounds of the viol and the song, there arose a cry of misericordia, and a beating of the breast, and a prostration of the body: the thorns were platted into crowns, which the sufferers pressed on their heads till the blood streamed down their faces, the roses being now trampled under foot. Some ran to their falling houses, to snatch thence their children, forgotten in the moments of festivity, but dear in danger.-Among the rest, came Don Duenas: he had been in his house with his wife and child; he could not save both at once, and while he was bearing her out, the roof fell, and his infant was crushed. His loss of property had been immense. This man, then, with this load of affliction, came to Fawkner (deputy governor), and told him he had ordered already four bullocks to be killed and distributed to the poor; and desired him to remember, that though his losses had been severe, he was still, comparatively, a rich man, and therefore able, as well as willing, to assist his neighbours and fellow-sufferers.

Saturday, 24th.-As I approached nearer, the tents and huts of the wretched fugitives claimed my attention; and there I saw the calamity in a light it had not hitherto appeared in. Rich and poor, young and old, masters and servants, huddled together, in intimacy frightful even here, where distinction of rank is by no means so broad as in Europe. I fear that whatever cause makes large bodies of men very miserable, makes them also very wicked.-Poor Maria came to me evidently sick at heart, I asked for her little boy, she burst into tears. He was sleeping in the rancho, on his little bed; she had been out at a neighbour's house, she ran home to seek her son: he lay on his bed, but a rafter had been shaken from its place, and had fallen on his little head; and from the face alone she could not have known her own child. They came to take the body, and bury it; she had not four dollars in the house; the priests, therefore, as she could not pay the fees, refused to bury it in consecrated ground; and they have thrown my child into a pit, like a dog, where the horses and the mules will walk over him, and where a Christian prayer will not reach him!' All comment on this would be idle.

Monday, 25th.-I have been busy all day packing my books, &c., to remove, because my house has been let over my head to some persons, who, seeing how well it has stood, have bribed the landlord to let it to them—they are English !"

Our limits will not allow of our giving further extracts from this lady's account, who remained in the country till January 17th, and has recorded many circumstances of great interest relating to this catastrophe.

THE slight shocks occasionally felt in our own country may more properly be considered as the remote effects of a various volcanic ranges by which we are surrounded, more powerful convulsion at some place situated within the though distantly; and this is rendered more probable, by in the time of their appearance with that of a violent comthe circumstance of these feeble visits commonly agreeing motion, of which the account is subsequently received from other countries Providentially, no greater damage has ever arisen from them than the shaking of houses, causing bells to ring, or furniture to move, &c. God has been pleased to exempt us from great calamities: but while it appears, from observation, that England is not, nor has been for many ages, within the sphere of volcanic activity, yet geological researches incontestably prove that there country, as well as others, was subjected to fiery erup was a time, long before all human records, when this have alluded in previous numbers to the convincing testi tions, and, therefore, most probably to earthquakes. We climate; and as far as experience goes, it appears that monies of this country having for ages enjoyed a tropical volcanic eruptions are principally felt in tropical or neigh bouring countries. In the recurrence of those cycles in which the surface of the globe appears to be gradually but constantly changing its character and temperature in sucagain be visited by these terrific powers; but these are cession, it may be expected that this part of Europe may the common reader, and we therefore refrain from dwelling rather speculations for the philosopher, than interesting to further on the subject.

AFTER reading the foregoing accounts of the desolating effects of volcanoes and earthquakes, some natural and pardonable doubts may arise in the minds of many, who, though convinced of the uniform wisdom and benevolence of the whole scheme of creation, may yet be perplexed to trace them in this frequent recurrence of visitations, apparently only involving thousands, innocent as well as guilty, in one sudden destruction but here, as in so many other cases, science and philosophy step in to dissipate these painful suggestions, and to vindicate that universal wisdom, by proving that without these catastrophes this globe would have been long ago, and might yet become an

uninhabitable waste.

Those inequalities of the earth's surface, which render it by variations in temperature and soil so eminently adapted to the existence of myriads of different races of beings, are constantly being reduced by the ceaseless action of air and water. The mountain rill, swollen by rains into a torrent, washes down fragments of rock detached by atmospherical causes; these are borne in time, by rivers, to the ocean, and the waves of this last are perpetually preying on the shores and cliffs, and gradually wasting away the elevated dry land; converting by degrees, continents into islands, and causing islands to disappear. These causes, if not counteracted, would, in time, reduce the whole surface of the planet to one nearly uniform level, possibly below that of the ocean, and thus render it uninhabitable but to few and inferior orders of beings. The antagonist power to this silent but ceaseless destruction, resides in the volcano and the earthquake, which are perpetually at work in restoring by violent efforts, these inequalities of level; either by gradually raising new mountains, by elevating islands from the bosom of the deep, or by raising extensive plains several feet at a time, above their former altitude; and thus the enlightened mind may perceive in these awful visitations, which bring death and ruin in their train, he efficient causes of the continued existence of millions of beings, to enjoy the bounties, and to tesify to the power of the only true God.

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