Volume II Part 22 (1/2)

Such is the effect even of the two cold bodies in cold ground; there only wants a sufficient quantity of this mixture to produce a true aetna

If it were supposed to burst out under the sea, it would produce a spout; and if it were in the clouds, the effect would be thunder and lightning

An earthquake is defined to be a veheitation of some considerable place, or part of the earth, froe noise like thunder, and frequently with an eruption of water, or fire, or sreatest and most foruish two kinds, with respect to the manner of the shake, viz, a tre horizontal, in alternate vibrations, coue; the second perpendicular, up and down, their ricola increases the nuain reduces to three, viz, inclination, when the earth vibrates alternately froht to ainst each other; pulsation, when it beats up and down, like an artery; and tre, when it shakes and totters every way, like a flame

The Philosophical Transactions furnish us with abundance of histories of earthquakes, particularly one at Oxford in 1665, by Dr Wallis and Mr

Boyle Another at the saot Another in Sicily, in 1692-3, by Mr Hartop, Father Alessandro Burgos, and Vin

Bonajutus, which last is one of the most terrible ones in all history

It shook the whole island; and not only that, but Naples and Malta shared in the shock It was of the second kind mentioned by Aristotle and Pliny, viz, a perpendicular pulsation or succussion It was impossible, says the noble Bonajutus, for anybody in this country to keep on their legs on the dancing earth; nay, those that lay on the ground were tossed froh walls leaped from their foundations several paces

The s in the countries were thron Fifty-four cities and towns, besides an incredible nued

We shall only instance the fate of Catania, one of the dom, the residence of several monarchs, and a university ”This once faos, ”had the greatest share in the tragedy

Father Antonio Serovita, being on his way thither, and at the distance of a fewover the city, and there arose froreat spires of flaan to roar and rise in billows, and there was a blow, as if all the artillery in the world had been at once discharged The birds flew about astonished, the cattle in the fields ran crying, &c His and his co; so that they were forced to alight They were no sooner off but they were lifted fro his eyes towards Catania, he with a but a thick cloud of dust in the air This was the scene of their calanificent Catania there is not the least footstep to be seen” Bonajutus assures us, that of 18,914 inhabitants, 18,000 perished therein The same author, from a computation of the inhabitants before and after the earthquake, in the several cities and towns, finds that near 60,000 perished out of 254,900

Jamaica is remarkable for earthquakes The inhabitants, Dr Sloane inforives the history of one in 1687; another horrible one, in 1692, is described by several anonymous authors In two minutes' time it shook down and drowned nine tenths of the town of Port Royal The houses sunk outright, thirty or forty fatho, sed up people, and they rose in other streets; soh there were two thousand people lost, and one thousand acres of land sunk All the houses were thron throughout the island One Hopkins had his plantation removed half a mile from its place Of all wells, from one fathom to six or seven, the water flew out at the top with a vehement motion While the houses on the one side of the street were sed up, on the other they were thrown in heaps; and the sand in the street rose like waves in the sea, lifting up everybody that stood on it, and i down into pits; and at the sa in, rolled the hold of beams and rafters, &c shi+ps and sloops in the harbour were overset and lost; the Swan frigate particularly, by theof the wharf, was driven over the tops ofnoise like that of thunder In less than a round they stood on, with the inhabitants, were all sunk quite under water, and the little part left behind was no better than a heap of rubbish The shake was so violent that it threw people down on their knees or their faces, as they were running about for shelter The ground heaved and swelled like a rolling sea, and several houses, still standing, were shuffled and moved some yards out of their places A whole street is said to be twice as broad now as before; and in many places the earth would crack, and open, and shut, quick and fast, of which openings two or three hundred ht be seen at a time; in so earth caught by the middle and pressed to death, in others the heads only appeared The larger openings sed up houses; and out of soht into the air, and threatening a deluge to that part the earthquake spared The whole was attended with stenches and offensive s mountains at a distance, &c, and the sky in aoven Yet, as great a sufferer as Port Royal was,therein than on the whole island besides Scarce a planting-house or sugar-as left standing in all Jareat part of theape; in lieu of which afterward appeared great pools of water, which, when dried up, left nothing but sand, without any mark that ever tree or plant had been thereon

Above twelve aped and spouted out, with a prodigious force, vast quantities of water into the air, yet the greatest violences were aeneral opinion, that the nearer the reater the shake, and that the cause thereof lay there Most of the rivers were stopped up for twenty-four hours by the falling of theup, they found thee trees, &c After the great shake, those people who escaped got on board shi+ps in the harbour, where many continued above twoso thick, sohtful noises, like a ruffling wind, or a hollow, ru thunder, with brimstone blasts, that they durst not coeneral sickness, from the noisome vapours belched forth, which swept away above three thousand persons

After the detail of these horrible convulsions, the reader will have but little curiosity left for the less considerable phenomena of the earthquake at Lima in 1687, described by Father Alvarez de Toledo, wherein above five thousand persons were destroyed; this being of the vibratory kind, so that the bells in the church rung of themselves; or that at Batavia in 1699, by Witsen; that in the north of England in 1703, by Mr Thoresby; or, lastly, those in New-England in 1663 and 1670, by Dr Mather

_To David Rittenhouse_

_New and curious Theory of Light and Heat_--Read in the American Philosophical Society, November 20, 1788

Universal space, as far as we know of it, seems to be filled with a subtile fluid, whose ht

This fluidattracted by, and entering into otherthe constituent particles, and so rendering so the fluidity of others; of which fluid, when our bodies are totally deprived, they are said to be frozen; when they have a proper quantity, they are in health, and fit to perform all their functions; it is then called natural heat; when too much, it is called fever; and when forced into the body in too great a quantity fro the flesh, and is then called burning, and the fluid so entering and acting is called fire

While organized bodies, ani their continual waste, is not this done by attracting and consolidating this fluid called fire, so as to form of it a part of their substance? And is it not a separation of the parts of such substance, which, dissolving its solid state, sets that subtile fluid at liberty, when it again makes its appearance as fire?

For the power oforits form and appearance by different co or creating new inal element or kind of matter, its quantity is fixed and permanent in the universe We cannot destroy any part of it, or make addition to it; we can only separate it from that which confines it, and so set it at liberty; as e put wood in a situation to be burned, or transfer it fro stone, a part of the fire dislodged in the fuel being left in the stone

May not this fluid, when at liberty, be capable of penetrating and entering into all bodies, organized or not, quitting easily in totality those not organized, and quitting easily in part those which are; the part assu till the body is dissolved?