the nuns, who likewife live in barracks, were conftantly walking about, under the tuition of their confeffor, and feemed gay, and to enjoy the liberty the earthquake had afforded them, and I made the fame obfervation with refpect to school-boys at Reggio; fo that in my journal, which I wrote in hafte, and from whence I have as haftily tranfcribed the imperfect account I fend you, the remark ftands thus "Earthquakes particularly pleafing to nuns and fchool-boys." Out of the cracks on the quay, it is faid, that during the earthquakes fire had been feen to iffue (as many I fpoke with attefted) but there are no vifible figns of it, and I am perfuaded it was no more than, as in Calabria, a vapour charged with electrical fire, or a kind of inflammable air. A curious circumftance happened here, alfo, to prove that animals can remain long alive without food: two mules belonging to the Duke of Belvifo remained under a heap of ruins, one of them twenty-two, and the other twenty-three days: they would not eat for fome days, but drank water plentifully, and are now quite recovered, There are numberless inftances of dogs remaining many days in the fame fituation; and a hen belonging to the British Vice-conful at Meffina, that had been clofely fhut up under the ruins of his houfe, was taken out the twenty-fecond day, and is now recovered; it did not eat for fome days, but drank freely; it was emaciated, and fhowed little figns of life at firft. From thefe inftances, from thofe related before of the girls at Oppido, and the hogs at Soriano, and from feveral others of the fame kind, that have been related to me, but which being lefs remarkable I omit, cne may conclude that long fafting is always attended with great thirft, and total lofs of appetite. From every enquiry I found that the great fhock of the 5th of February was from the bottom upwards, and not like the fubfequent ones, which in general have been horizontal and vorticofe.-A circumftance worth remarking (and which was the fame on the whole coaft of that part of Calabria that had been moit affected by the

earthquake) is, that a fmall fish called Cicirelli, refembling what we call in England white-bait, but of a greater fize, and which ufually lie at the bottom of the fea, buried in the fand, have been ever fince the commencement of the earthquakes, and continue ftill to be, taken near the furface, and in fuch abundange as to be the common food of the pooreft fort of people; whereas, before the earthquakes, this fifh was rare, and reckoned amongst the greatest delicacies. All fish in general have been taken in greater abundance, and with much greater facility, in thofe parts fince they have been afflicted by earthquakes than before. I conftantly afked every fisherman I met with on the coaft of Sicily and Calabria, if this circumftance was true; and was as conftantly anfwered in the affirmative; but with fuch emphafis, that it must have been very extraordinary. I fuppofe, that either the fand at the bottom of the fea may have been heated by the volcanick fire under it; or that the continual tremor of the earth has driven the fish out of their ftrong 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 myself. I found the citadel here had not received any material damage; but was in the fame ftate as I had left it fifteen years ago. The lazaret has fome cracks in it like thofe on 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, rofe and boiled in a moft extraordinary manner, and with a moft horrid and alarming noife, the water in the other parts of the Faro being perfectly calm. This feems to point out exhalations of eruptions 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 con

vinced,

vinced, have here a volcanic origin.

On the 17th of May I left Meffina, where I had been kindly and hofpitaEly treated, and proceeded in my fperonara along the Sicilian coat to the point of the entrance of the Faro, where I went afhore, and found a priest who had been there the night between the 5th and 6th of February, when the great wave paffed over that point, carried off boats, and above twentyfour unhappy people, tearing up trees, and leaving fome hundred weight of fh it had brought with it on the dry land. He told me he had been himfelf covered with the wave, and with difficulty faved his life. He at firft faid the water was hot; but as I was curious to come at the truth of this fact, which would have concluded much, I asked him if he was fure of it? And being preffed, it came to be no more than the water having been as warm as it ufually is in fummer. He faid the wave rofe to a great height, and came on with noife, and fach rapidity that it was impoffible to efcape. The tower on the point was half deftroyed, and a poor priest that was in it loft his life. From hence I crofled over to Scilla. Having met with my friend the Padre Minali, a Dominican friar, a worthy man and an able naturalift, who is a native of Scilla, and is actually employed by the academy of Naples to give a defcription of the phenomena that have attended the earthquake in thefe parts; with his affiftance on the fpot, I perfectly underflood the nature of the formidable wave that was faid to have been boiling hot, and had certainly proved fatal to the baron of the country, the Prince of Scilla, who was fwept off the fhore into the fea by this wave, with 2473 of his unfortunate fubjects. The following is the fact-The Prince of Scilla having remarked, that during the firit horrid fhock (which happened about noon the 5th of February) part of a rock near Scilla had been detached into the fea, and fearing that the rock of Scilla, on which his caftle and town is fituated, might alfo be detached, thought it fafer to prepare boats, and

retire to a little port or beach furrounded by rocks, at the foot of the rock. The fecond fhock of the earthquake, after midnight, detached a whole mountain (much higher than that of Scilla, and partly calcareous, and partly cretaceous) fituated between the Torre del Cavallo, and the Rock of Scilla. This having fallen with violence into the fea (at that time perfectly calm) raifed the fatal wave, which I have above defcribed to have broken upon the neck of land, called the Punta del Faro, in the inland of Scilla, with fuch fury, which returning with great noife and celerity directly upon the beach, where the Prince and the unfortunate inhabitants of Scilla had taken refuge, either dafhed them with their boats and richet effects against the rocks, or whirled them into the fea; thofe who had efcaped the first and greatest wave were carried off by a fecond and third, which were lefs confiderabie, and immediately followed the firft. I spoke to feveral men, women, and children here, who had been cruelly maimed, and fome of whom had been carried into the fea by this unforeseen accident. Here, faid cne, my head was forced through the door of the cellar, which he thewed me was broken. There, faid another, was I drove into a barrel. Then a woman would show me her child, all over deep wounds from the ftones and timber, &c. that were mixed with the water, and dashing about in this narrow port; but all affured me they had not perceived the leaft fymptom of heat in the water, though I dare fay, Sir, you will read many well attefted accounts of this water having been hot; of many dead bodies thrown up, which appcare! to have been parboiled by it; and of many living perfons who had evidently been fcalded by this hot wave, fo difficult is it to arrive at truth. Had I been fatisfied with the first anfwer of the priest at the Punta del Faro, and fet it down in my journal, who could have doubted but that this wave had been of hot water? Now that we are well acquainted with the cause of this fatal wave we know it could not have

been

will then include all the towns and villages that have been utterly ruined, and the fpots where the greatest mortality has happened, and where there have been the most visible alterations on the face of the earth. Then extend your compafs on the fame fcale to 72 miles, preferving the fame centre, and form another circle, you will include the whole of the country that has any mark of having been affected by the earthquake. I plainly obferved a gradation in the damage done to the buildings, as alfo in the degree of mortality, in proportion as the countries were more or lefs diftant from this fuppofed centre of the evil. One circumftance I particularly remarkedif two towns were fituated at an equal distance from the centre, the one on a hill, the other on a plain, or in a bottom, the latter had always fuffered greatly more by the fhocks of the earthquakes than the former; a fufficient proof to me of the caufe coming from beneath, as this muft naturally have been productive of fuch an effect. And I have reafon to believe, that the bottom of the fea, being ftill nearer the volcanic caufe, would be found (could it be feen) to have fuffered even more than the plain itfelf; but (as you will find in moft of the accounts of the earthquake that are in the prefs, and which are numerous) the philofophers, who do not easily abandon their ancient fyftems, make the prefent earthquakes to proceed from the high mountains of the Apennines that divide Calabria Ultra, fuch as Monte Dejo, Monte Caulone, and Afpramonte, I would afk them this fimple queftion, did the Eolian or Lipari iliands (all which rofe undoubtedly from the bottom of the fea by volcanic explofions at different and perhaps very diftant periods) owe their birth to the Apennines in Cala bria, or to veins of minerals in the bowels of the earth, and under the bottom of the fea? Stromboli, an active volcano, and probably the youngest of

ap

thofe iflands, is not above 50 miles from the parts of Calabria that hare been moft affected by the late earthquakes. The vertical fhocks, or, in other words, thofe whofe impulfe was from the bottom upwards, have been the most deftructive to the unhappy towns in the plain: did they proceed from Monte Dejo, Monte Caulone, or Afpramonte? In fhort, the idea I have of the prefent local earthquakes is, that they have been caufed by the fame kind of matter that gave birth to the Eolian or Lipari iflands; that, perhaps, an opening may have been made at the bottom of the fea, and most probably between Stromboli and Calabria Ultra (for from that quarter all agree that the fubterraneous noifes feem to have proceeded) and that the foundation of a new ifland or volcano may have been laid, though it may be ages, which to Nature are but moments, before it is completed, and pears above the furface of the fea. Nature is ever active, but her actions are, in general, carried on fo very flowly as fcarcely to be perceived by mortal eye, or recorded in the very fhort space of what we call hiftory, let it be ever fo ancient. Perhaps, too, the whole deftruction I have been defcribing may have proceeded fimply from the exha lations of confined vapours, generated by the fermentation of fuch minerals as produce volcanoes, which have efcaped where they met with the leaft refiftance, and muft naturally in a greater degree have affected the plain than the high and more folid grounds around it. When the account of the Royal Academy of Naples is publifhed, with maps, plans, and drawings of the curious fpot I have defcribed, this rude and imperfect account will, I flatter myself, be of ufe; without the plans and drawings you well know, Sir, the great difficulty there is in making one's felf intelligible on fuch a fubjećt. I have the honour to be, &c.

FOREIGN travel is knowlege to a

wife man and foppery to a fool. We frequently condemn old people

W. H.

for their love of pleafure and company, but furely the morning of life is beft fuited to bufinefs, the evening to fociety.