Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

force may, with great eafe, produce earthquakes; and if encreafed, it may convulfe the globe; it may (by only adding figures enough to the calculation) destroy the folar fyftem, and even the fixed ftars themselves." Thefe reveries generally produce nothing; for, as I have ever obferved, encreafed calculations, while they seem to tire the memory, give the reasoning faculty perfect repose.

However, as earthquakes are the moft formidable minifters of nature, it is not to be wondered that a multitude of writers have been curiously employed in their confideration. Woodward has afcribed the cause to a stoppage of waters below the earth's furface by fome accident. Thefe being thus accumulated, and yet acted upon by fires which he supposes still deeper, both contribute to heave up the earth upon their bofom. This he thinks accounts for the lakes of water produced in an earthquake, as well as the fires that sometimes burft from the earth's furface upon those dreadful occafions. There are others ftill who have fuppofed that the earth may be itself the cause of its own convulfions. When, fay they, the root or basis of fome large track is worn away by a fluid underneath, the earth finking therein, its weight occafions a tremor of the adjacent parts, fometimes producing a noife, and fometimes an inundation of water. Not to tire the reader with an history of opinions inftead of facts, fome have afcribed them to electricity, and fome to the fame caufes that produce thunder.

It would be tedious, therefore, to give all the various opinions that have employed the fpeculative upon this fubject. The activity of the internal heat feems alone fufficient to account for every appearance that attends these tremendous irregularities of nature. To conceive this diftinctly, let us fuppofe, at fome vaft diftance under the earth, large quantities of inflammable matter--- pyrites, bitumens, and marcafites--difpofed, and only waiting for the afperfion of water, or the humidity of the air, to put their fires in motion: at laft this dreadful mixture arrives; waters find their way into these depths through the perpendicular fiffures, or air infinuates itself through the fame minute apertures: inftantly new appearances enfue; those subftances which tor ages before lay dormant, now conceive new apparent qualities; they grow hot, produce new air, and only want room for expansion. However, the narrow apertures, by which the air or water had at first admiffion, are now closed up; yet, as new air is continually generated, and as the heat every moment gives this air new elafticity, it at length bursts, and dilates all round; and, in its struggles to get free, throws all

F 2

above

above it in fimilar convulfions. Thus an earthquake is produced, more or less extenfive according to the depth or the greatness of the cause.

But before we proceed with the causes, let us take a short view of the appearances which have attended the most remarkable earthquakes: by thefe we fhall fee how far the theorift corresponds with the hiftorian. The greatest we find in antiquity is that mentioned by Pliny, in which twelve cities in Afia Minor were fwallowed up in one night: he tells us also of another, near the lake Thrafymene, which was not perceived by the armies of the Carthaginians and Romans, that were then engaged near that lake, although it shook the greateft part of Italy. In another place he gives the following account of an earthquake of an extraordinary kind--

"When Lucius Marcus and Sextus Julius were confuls, there appeared a very ftrange prodigy of the earth, (as I have read in the books of the Etrufcan difcipline) which happened in the province of Mutina---two mountains fhocked againft each other, approaching and retiring, with the most dreadful noife; they at the fame time, and in the midst of day, appeared to caft forth fire and fimoke, while a vaft number of Roman knights and travellers from the Æmilian way, ftood and conti→ nued amazed fpectators. Several towns were deftroyed by this fhock, and all the animals that were near them were killed."

In the times of Trajan, the city of Antioch, and a great part of the adjacent country, was buried by an earthquake.--About three hundred years after, in the times of Juftinian, it was once more deftroyed, together with 40,000 inhabitants; and after an interval of fixty years, the fame ill-fated city was a third time overturned with the lofs of not lefs than 60,000 fouls. In the year 1182, most of the cities of Syria, and the kingdom of Jerufalem, were deftroyed by the fame accident. In the year 1594, the Italian hiftorians describe an earthquake at Puteoli, which caufed the fea to retire two hundred yards from its former bed.

But one of thofe moft particularly defcribed in hiftory is that of the year 1693, the damages of which were chiefly felt in Sicily, but its motion perceived in Germany, France, and England---it extended to a circumference of 2600 leagues; chiefly affecting the fea coaft and great rivers; more perceivable alfo upon the mountains than in the vallies. Its motions were fo rapid, that those who lay at their length were toffed from fide to fide, as upon a rolling billow. The walls were dafhed from their foundations; and no lefs than fifty-four cities,

with an incredible number of villages, were either deftroyed or greatly damaged. The city of Catanea, in particular, was utterly overthrown. A traveller, who was on his way thither, at the distance of fome miles, perceived a black cloud, like night, hanging over the place. The fea, all of a fudden began to roar, Mount Etna to fend forth great fpires of flame, and foon after a fhock enfued, with a noife as if all the artillery in the world had been at once discharged. Our traveller, being obliged to alight inftantly, felt himself raifed a foot from the ground; and, turning his eyes to the city, he with amazement faw nothing but a thick cloud of duft in the air. The birds flew about astonished; the fun was darkened; the beasts ran howling from the hills; and though the fhock did not continue above three minutes, yet near 19,000 of the inhabitants of Sicily perished in the ruins. Catanea, to which city the defcriber was travelling, feemed the principal fcene of ruin; its place only was to be found; and not a footstep of its former magnificence was to be seen remaining.

The earthquake which happened in Jamaica, in 1692, was very terrible, and its defcription fufficiently minute.--." In two minutes time it deftroyed the town of Port-Royal, and funk the houses in a gulph forty fathoms deep. It was attended with a hollow rumbling noife, like that of thunder; and in less than a minute three parts of the houses, and their inhabitants were all funk quite under water. While they were (wallowed up on one fide of the street, on the other the houses were thrown into heaps; the fand of the ftreet rising like the waves of the fea, lifting up those that stood upon it, and immediately overwhelming them in pits. All the wells difcharged their waters with the most vehement agitation. The fea felt an equal fhare of turbulence, and, buriting over its mounds, deluged all that came in its way. The fiflures of the earth were, in fome places, fo great, that one of the streets appeared twice as broad as formerly. In many places, however, it opened and closed again, and continued this agitation for fome time. Of these openings two or three hundred might be feen at a time---in some of which the people were fwallowed up; in others the earth, clofing, caught them in the middle, and thus crushed them inftantly to death. Other openings, ftill more dreadful than the rest, swallowed up whole ftreets; and others, more formidable ftill, fpouted up whole cataracts of water, drowning fuch as the earth had fpared. The whole was attended with the most noisome ftench; while the thundering of the diftant falling mountains, the whole fky overcaft with a dufky gloom,

and

[ocr errors]

and the crash of falling habitations, gave unfpeakable horror to the scene. After this dreadful calamity was over, the whole ifland feemed converted into a scene of defolation; fcarce a planter's house was left standing; almost all were fwallowed up ---houses, people, trees, fhared one univerfal ruin; and in their places appeared great pools of water, which, when dried up by the fun, left only a plain of barren fand, without any veitige of former inhabitants. Most of the rivers, during the earthquake, were ftopped up by the falling in of the mountains; and it was not till after fome time that they made themselves new channels. The mountains feemed particularly attacked by the force of the fhock; and it was fuppofed that the principal feat of the concuffion was among them. Those who were faved got on board fhips in the harbour, where many remained above two months, the fhocks continuing during that interval with more or less violence every day."

As this defcription feems to exhibit all the appearances that ufually make up the catalogue of terrors belonging to an earthquake, I will fupprefs the detail of that which happened at Lisbon in our own times, and which is too recent to require a defcription. In fact, there are few particulars in the accounts. of those who were present at that defolation, that we have not more minutely and accurately tranfmitted to us by former writers, whose narratives I have for that reafon preferred. I will therefore close this description of human calamities with the account of the dreadful earthquake at Calabria, in 1638. It is related by the celebrated Father Kircher, as it happened while he was on his journey to vifit Mount Etna, and the rest of the wonders that lie towards the fouth of Italy. I need scarce inform the reader, that Kircher is confidered, by scholars, as one of the greatest prodigies of learning.

(To be continued.)

H

ON ATONEMENT,

IN ANSWER TO QUERIES, Vol. II. P. 312.

(Concluded from vol. ii. p. 352.)

ENCE the apoftle, quoting the Old Teftament, (Pfalm xl. 6. in the Septuagint, "A body haft thou prepared Heb. x. 5.) points us thereto, in the fame manner as Solomon does, 2 Chron. vi. 18.--

me,

כי האמנם ישב אלהים את האדם על הארץ:

But will God in truth (i. e. in antitype) inhabit the human nature upon the earth? Yes, fays the prophet Ifaiah, (chap. vii. 14) Behold, a virgin fhall conceive, and bear a fon, and fhall call his name Immanuel. This is alfo declared by Matthew (chap. i. 33) to be a fact which had taken place at Bethlehem. The church alfo, commemorating the great anxiety of David, respecting the habitation of Jehovah, cries out in extasy, "Behold, we have heard of it (i. e. this habitation) at Ephratah (Bethlehem). Comp. Mich. v. 2. This dwelling-place, no doubt also, the prophet turns our attention to, Ifaiah, lxvi. 1. Thus faith the Lord: The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; where is the houfe that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my reft, &c.---But to this (man) will

I caufe expectation, or hope, (namely, he who is the feed of the woman) unto the afflicted one, &c. John alfo bears the fame record, chap. i. 14." And the Word was made flefh, and dwelt, (or tabernacled) among us; and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Having fufficiently proved from divine authority, that He is the fcope, meaning, and truth of the temple, (as the dwelling-place of the Deity, or God manifeft in the flesh, 1 Tim. iii. 15.) with all its apparatus, nothing can be more clear, than that he is also the spirit of all the facrifices, whether we confider them as by burnt-offerings,

-peace שלמים trcfpafs-offerings, or אשמים,fin-offerings חטאות

offerings. In him likewife we muft look for the meaning of all the things which were in the worldly fanctuary, viz. p the candlestick, the mystery of which was "the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world," filling the temple of God, the body of Chrift, both natural and myftical, with fulness of light. Solomon made ten fuch candlesticks, I Kings, vii. 49.) which was faying in figures what Paul does in words, that all the fulness of the Godhead, or light, dwelt in Christ, and was by him communicated to the church; " of his fulness have we all received," John, i. 16. Col. i. 19; for yaw is fulness, and "wy ten (all). The table, the fhew-bread -the golden pot that had manna, as holding out to us the Father's gift of the true bread, even the true bread which camé down from heaven, the bread of life---Aaron's rod that budded, and bloomed bloffoms, and yielded almonds; denoting) him who was raised from the dead, and thus declared to be the fon of God with power; fee Numb. xvii. 8---10. comp. with Heb. ix. 3, 4.---The tables of the covenant, the divine law

« AnteriorContinuar »