Page:Account of several remarkable earthquakes which have happened in various quarters of the world (1).pdf/15

 the sea when the wind first begins to rise, that the agitation of the earth was so great even under the river, that it threw up his large anchor from the mooring, which swam, as he termed it, on the surface of the water; that immediately upon this extraordinary concussion, the river rose at once near twenty feet, and in a moment subsided; at which instant he saw the quay, with the whole concourse of people upon it, sink down, and at the same time every one of the boats and vessels that were near it were drawn into the cavity, which he supposes instantly closed upon them, inasmuch as not the least sign of a wreck was ever seen afterwards. This account you may give full credit to, for as to the loss of the vessels, it is confirmed by every body; and with regard to the quay, I went myself a few days after, to convince myself of the truth, and could not find even the ruins of a place, where I had taken so many agreeable walks, as this was the common rendezvous of the factory in the cool of the evening. I found it all deep water, and in some parts scarcely to be fathomed.

'This is the only place I could learn which was swallowed up in or about Lisbon, though I saw many large cracks and fissures in different parts, and one odd phenomenon I must not omit, which was communicated to me by a friend who had a house and wine-cellars on the other side of the river, viz that the dwelling-house being first terribly shaken, which made all the family run out, there presently fell down a vast high rock near it, that upon this the river rose and subsided in the manner already mentioned, and immediately a great number of small fissures appeared in several contiguous pieces of ground, whence there spouted out like a jet d'eau a large quantity of fine white sand, to a prodigious height.