Page:The Philosophy of Earthquakes, Natural and Religious.djvu/20

 16 the year of our Lord 17, no less than thirteen great and noble cities in Asia minor, were destroyed in one night. Tacitus, Pliny, and many other authors mention it. The fact is so notorious, that some persons here present, have seen a vast block of white marble now standing near Naples; being the pedestal of a coloss statue of Tiberius the emperor; having carv'd on it the genius's, or pictures of all those cities, with their names. The accurate Bulifon and others have wrote treatises upon it. These cities were rebuilt by that emperor. But without going so far, we may see another evidence of it, a coin of that emperor struck upon the occasion, with this inscription,

CIVITATIBUS ASIAE RESTITUTIS.

I have one of them, in large brass, which was found at Colchester.

The compass of this earthquake may be reckoned to take up 300 miles diameter, as a circle. Now, we cannot conceive, how any subterraneous vapour can produce such an effect, as instantaneously to demolish all these cities; and that such an accident should never happen after. That the whole country of Asia minor should not at the same time be destroy'd, its mountains be renversed, its fountains, springs, and rivers broken up and ruin'd for ever. Instead whereof we find thing