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Show 429 EARTliQUAli:E IN CALABRIA, A.D. 1783. from the ground immediately before the nrst great shock. This mud, rapidly accumulating, began, ere long, to roll onward like a flood of lava into the valley, where the two streams uniting, moved forward with increased impetus from east to west. It now presented a breadth of three hundred palms by twenty in depth, and before it ceased to move, covered a surface equal in length to an Italian mile. In its progress it overwhelmed a flock of thirty goats, and tore up by the roots many olive and mulberry-trees, which floated like ships upon its surface. When this calcareous lava had ceased to move, it gradually became dry and hard, during which process the mass was lowered ten palm~. It contained fragments of earth of a ferruginous colour, and emitting a sulphureous smell. Many of the appearances exhibited in the alluvial plains indicate clearly the alternate rising and sinking of the ground. The first effect of the more violent shocks was usually to dry up the rivers, but they immediately afterwards overflowed their banks. Along the alluvial plains, and in marshy places, an immense number of cones of sand were thrown up. These appearances Hamilton explains, by supposing that the first movement raised the -fissured plain from below upwards, so that the rivers and stagnant waters in bogs sank down, or at least were not upraised with the soil. But when the ground FAtL OF CLIFFS ON TilE SEA COAST.· 429 returned with violenc t . h e o Its forme · · t rown up in J. cts thr 1 fi . r position, t1I e water was I oug 1 ssures * . n the Report of the A d . covered with circular h ]lea e7' we find that some plains were f . o ows lOr the t o carnage-wheels but f ' mos part about the size When filled with ~ater t o t~~. somewhat larger or smaller. they appeared like wen:. w~ :m .a foot or two of the surface, with dry sand sometim ' . lu ' m general, they were filled ti·m es convex. ' On dig e·s Wdit 1 a concave sur£ a ce, and at other nel-shaped and the gt~g lown, they found them to be fun-h ' mOlst oose sand in th t e tube up which tlle w t e centre marked a er spouted Th represents a section of one f th . . e annexed cut watet: had disappeared, and onoth~~e Ibnverted co?es when the remamed. g ut dry miCaceous sand No.29. Along the sea-coast of the straits of M . brated rock of Scilla, the fall of h cr essma, near the cele .. the bold and loft l'm uoe masses detached from . y c Ius overwhelmed man viii d At Gian Greco a continuous line of cliff. for a as ·~n . galrdens. was thrown down. Great ao: . , mi e m ength, in the bed of the sea durino· tfta~onl was frequently observed the coast where tl o 1C s oc <:s, and, on those parts of fish were taken inl:L~ovement was most violent, all kinds of facili'ty S o eater abundance, and with much gl'eatcr usually· lie boumriee dr ai ret l.s p eci·e ~, as t 1l at called Cicirelli, which waters in gre t n l.c san ' were taken on the surface of the near Me . a qduantity. The sea is said to have boiled up ssma, an to have b 't t ,J • discharO'e of . f . een agt a e4 as If by a copious o vapoms rom Its bottom. '!'he Prince of Scilla "' Phil. Trans., vol. lxxiii.1 P• 180. |
