Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/147

 Cliap. 82.] CLEFTS or THE EAETH. 113 do^vll, and in others swallowed up by a deep cleft' ; some- times great masses of earth are heaped up, and rivers forced out, sometimes even flame and hot springs'-, and at others the course of rivers is turned. A terrible noise precedes and accompanies the shock^ ; sometimes a murmuring, like the lowing of cattle, or like human voices, or the clashing of arms. This depends on the substance which receives the sound, and the shape of the caverns or crevices through which it issues ; it being more shrill from a narrow opening, more hoarse from one that is curved, producing a loud rever- beration from hard bodies, a sound like a boiling fluid^ from moist substances, fluctuating in stagnant water, and roaring when forced against solid bodies. There is, therefore, often the sound without any motion. Nor is it a simple motion, but one that is tremulous and vibratory. The cleft some- times remains, displaying what it has swallowed up ; some- times concealing it, the mouth being closed and the soil being brought over it, so that no vestige is left ; the city being, as it were, devoured, andthetract of country engulfed. Maritime districts are more especially subject to shocks. Nor are mountainous tracts exempt from them ; I have found, by my inquiries, that the Alps and the Apennines are fre- quently shaken. The shocks happen more frequently in the autumn and in the spring, as is the case also wdth thunder. There are seldom shocks in Gaul and in Egypt ; in the latter it depends on the prevalence of summer, in the former, of winter. They also happen more frequently in the night than in the day. The greatest shocks are in the morning and tlie evening ; but they often take place at day-break, and some- times at noon. They also take place during eclipses of the sun and of the moon, because at that time storms are lulled. They are most frequent when great heat succeeds to showers, or showers succeed to great heat^. ^ Poinsinet enters into a long detail of some of the most remarkable earthquakes that have occurred, from the age of Pliny to the period when he wi'ote, about fifty years ago ; i. 2 M). 2. " See Aristotle, Meteor, ii. 8. 3 See Aristotle, Meteor, ii. 8, and Seneca, Nat Qua?st. vi. 13. Lemau'e, i. 40k 5 The reader will scarcely require to be informed, that many of tlio remarks in the latter part of this chapter are inconrct. Our author has principally followed Aristotle, whose treatise on meteorology, although aboundhig in cui-ious details, is pcrhapsone of the least correct of liis works. VOL. I. I
 * " Fervente ; " " Fremitum aquse ferventis imitante." Alexandre in