Page:Account of several remarkable earthquakes which have happened in various quarters of the world (1).pdf/19

 EARTHQUAKES, IN CALABRIA AND SICILY, IN 1783.

HE year, 1783 was fatally marked by the desolation of some of the most fertile, most beautiful, and most celebrated provinces of Europe, the two Calabrias, with a part of Sicily, were to be a scene of the most tremenduous,  the most fatal earthquakes that ever were, even in those volcanic regions. The first happened about noon, on the fifth of February, and was so violent as to involve almost the  of Calabria in ruin. This was but the commencement of a succession of earthquakes, which from the city of Amantea, on the coast  the Tyrrhene sea, proceeded along the western  to Cape Spartivento, and up the eastern as far as Cape D'Alice; during the whole of which  not a town was left undestroyed.

During two years repeated shocks continued to the affrighted minds of the inhabitants of  and Sicily, but the principal mischiefs  in the months of February and March in the  year. For several months the earth in an unceasing tremor, which at certain  increased to violent shocks, some of which  beyond description dreadful. These shocks sometimes horizontal, whirling like a vortex, and sometimes by pulsations, or beating from the  upwards, and were at times so violent that  heads of the largest trees almost touched the  on either side. The rains, during a great of the time, were continual and violent, often accompanied with lightning, and furious gusts  wind. All that part of Calabria, which lay the 38th and 39th degrees assumed a new