Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857 Vol 2.djvu/447

380 Generally, therefore, the seismic foci, or the bands of earthquake disturbance in the Italian peninsula follow the lines of the great riiountain ranges, and accord fully with that great fact, first, I believe, announced in my Report ('Reports Brit. Assoc, of 1858,') and following from the discussion of the earthquake map of the world there produced, as being the law of earthquake distribution over the whole surface of our globe. If we extend the survey wider, as in Map D, to the whole Mediterranean basin, we shall find the southern Italian seismic band, extending westward through Sicily, embracing Malta and Pantellaria; and those submarine seismic regions off the south coast of Sicily, in which, in 1845, the ship 'Victory,' in lat. 36° 40' 56" long. 13° 44' 36" received a shock from beneath; and running through Gigilli and Algiers, along the Atlas ranges, and finally connecting, with various alternations of intensity, with the Azores. The band that stretches across Italy to Gargano, crosses the Adriatic, and at Ragusa, (that notorious seismic place,) inosculates with the band that comes down from Hungary, through the mountain ranges of Illyria and Dalmatia; and which, bifurcating near Ragusa, follows the Balkan chain to Constantinople and the western shore of the Euxine; and in its southern branch passing down through Albania, the Ionian Islands, and the Morea, spreads out, and embraces all the volcanic insular mountain tops of the Greek islands. It again bifurcates at Smyrna, (another notorious seismic spot,) one branch (the northern) passing through the mountains of Anatolia, and by Broussa, so sadly and recently known in earthquake story, and on to Sinope, on the south shore of the Euxine, and thence into the southern Caucasus. The southern branch again, passing over Rhodes,