recedentefque; inter eos flamma, fumoque, in cælum exeunte interdiu, fpectante è viá Æmilia, magná equitum Romanorum, familiarumque, et viatorum multitudine. Eo concurfu, villa omnes elifæ, animalia permulta, quæ intra fuerant, exanimata funt, &c*.

This fomething resembles, and may ferve to evince and illuftraté thofe paffages in the pfalms, in the literal fenfe, which mention the leaping and skipping of the mountains, like rams, and of the little hills, like lambs +.. It is not improbable, but that a phenomenon of this kind might have been exhibited to the Ifraelites in the wilderness; most like, ly when they were at mount Sinai; which, we are expressly told, was then moved by an earthquake ‡.

When that terrible earthquake happened in Jamaica, in the year 1692, part of a mountain, not far from Tall-boufe, after it had made feveral leaps and removes,

Hift. Nat. lib. ii. cap. 13.

+ Pf. lxviii. 16.-cxiv. 4, 6.

Exod. xix. 18.

over-whelmed a whole family, and a great part of a plantation; though a mile diftant. And in the earthquake at China, 1718, feveral mountains were thrown over a plain, to the distance of above two leagues *.

In the account of the dreadful earthquake in the Azores, July 1757, fome mountains are faid to have fhifted places; and others to have entirely difappeared; and a plain to have taken place of themSome iflands torn afunder, and several new islands to have appeared. These instances likewise contribute to confirm the literal sense of the above paffages in the pfalms.

The credibility of an univerfal earthquake may be evinced from facts; fome very general ones having happened, which produced very great and aftonishing effects; though not to be compared with that here fuppofed.

An earthquake happened under the first confulship of Valentinian and Valens, which * Hiftory of Earthquakes.

was

was felt throughout the whole known world. It is recorded by Ammianus Marcellinus, partly in thefe words

Horrendi terrores per omnem orbis ambitum graffati funt fubitò, quales nec fabulæ, nec veridica nobis antiquitates exponunt-Tremefacta concutitur omnis terreni ftabilitas ponderis; mareque difpulfum retrò fluctibus evo lutis abfceffit-valliumqve vaftitates, et montium tunc, ut opinari dabatur, fufpicerent radios folis; quos primigenia rerum fub immenfis gurgitibus amandavit-proinde, ut elementorum furente difcordia, involuta facies mundi miraculorum fpecies oftendebat *.

The fame earthquake is mentioned by St. Jerom, and other writers of that time, as being universal and very terrible in its effects +.

In these latter ages, the Andes of Peru, the greatest and highest ridge of moun

*Amm. Marcell. lib. xxvi. cap. 10.

+ Hieronym. in Chronico, et in vitâ Hilarionis. So. cratis Hift. Eccl. lib. cap. 3. Orofii Hift. lib. vii. cap.

32.

tains in the world, were, for fome hundreds of leagues in length, fo violently fhaken by an earthquake in the year 1646, that many alterations were made by it throughout the extent of them *.

That terrible earthquake, which fpent its rage chiefly at Lisbon, on Nov. 1, 1755, was fuch, for the wideness of its extent, as well as the dreadful devastations it made, not only there, but in diftant countries, that I queftion whether it is to be paralleled by any inftances of earthquakes, recorded in history.

It feemed to have fhaken the greatest part of the northern hemisphere, including in a manner all Europe, from Greenland, in the north, to Spain and Portugal, fouth, and Italy and Germany, eastward. It swept all the northern coafts of Africa, from east to west. It fhot through the great Atlantic ocean; and vifited all the maritime parts of North-America, from New-found-land, to the Weft-Indies.

* Ray, ibid. from Kircher's Arca Nox.

This was followed by another very dreadful earthquake in Afia, four years afterwards; of which the following account is extracted from a letter, which appeared in the publick papers, dated from Tripoli, in Syria, Dec. 13, 1759.

"This country is almoft entirely deftroyed by an earthquake, which hath been felt throughout an extent of a hundred leagues in length; and near as many in breadth, forming a space of about a thoufand fquare leagues; containing the chain of mountains, of Liban, and Antiliban, with a prodigious number of villages; the greatest part of which is now nothing but a heap of ruins."

All these concuffons undoubtedly were very strong and general; and yet they bore but a flender proportion to the whole globe, and could have but very little effect upon the bulk of it.

With regard to this, M. Buffon hath made a calculation, in which he supposes, that ridge of high mountains, which tra