“ One cloud heaped on another, and succeeding one another incessantly; formed in a few hours such a gigantic and elevated column of the darkest hue over the mountain, as seemed to threaten Naples with immediate destruction, having at one time been bent over the city, and appearing to be much too masive and ponderous to remain long suspended in the air; it was, besides, replete with the ferilli, or volcanic lightning, which was stronger than common lightning. ”

“ How account for the sudden irruption of rivers, the lapses of earth, the disunion of rocks, the fissures of mountains, and for other objects of the sublime and terrible, which have changed and disfigured the face of the country? How account for the hollow roarings of the sea, and for the instability of the climate for many months before and for the dreadful pauses that were observed to take place, before the buildings were entirely over-turned? ”

“ All this time there was not the smallest appearance of fire or smoke from the crater on the summit Vesuvius; but the black smoke and ashes issued continually from so many new mouths, or craters formed an enormous and dense body of clouds over the whole mountain, and which began to give signs of being replete with the electric fluid, by exhilerating flashes of that sort of zig zag lightning, which in the volcanic language of the country is called ferilli, and which is the constant attendant on the most violent eruptions. ”

“ Vesuvius was at this time completely covered, it were all the old black lavas, with a thick coat of those fine light grey ashes already fallen, which gave it a cold and horrid appearance; and in comparison of the abovementioned enormous mass of clouds which certainly, however it may contradict our idea of the extension of our atmosphere, rose many miles above the mountain, it appeared like a molehill although the perpendicular height of Vesuvius from the level of the sea, is more than three thousand six hundered feet. ”

“ The darkness of the night, the howling of the winds, the growling of the thunder, and the partial flashes of the lightning that darted through the murky cloud, which sometimes burst forth with a plenitude of light, and at others hardly give sufficient lumination to brighten the terrified aspect of the negroes ”

“ The uncertainty they were under with regard to the shore before them which they had reason to believe was part of Hyde Alli's dominions, where they should meet with the most rigorous treatment, if not ultimate death, was forgotten in the joyful hope of saving life, and they scudded towards the shore in all the exulting transports of a people just snatched from the jaws of death. ”

“ So sudden an alteration, is enough to shake a philosophy that has not before been tried; and such a change is sufficient to excite those complaints which are caused by disappointment, but which may be born with patience, and finaly overcome by calmness and resignation. If we meet with affliction, are we alone unfortunate? If we lose our all, are we the only beggars. How many are reduced to penury who cannot work! what numbers perish without help, or are entombed alive without pity! and yet how many emerge from distress and want, by a manly fortitude, and steady perseverence of conduct! ”

“ A very great proportion of the poor inhahitants were crushed to death, or drowned, and in one hour alone, it was computed that forty, out of one and forty souls, unhappily and prematurely perished. The sea drove with progressive violence for more than a mile into the country; and carried terror as it left destruction, wherever it passed. Two large ships and a schooner were at anchor in the bay, but here driven a considerable distance from the shore, and totally wrecked among the mango trees upon land. ”

“ Account of the Earthquake that happened in Jamaica, in 1692.
IN 1692, an Earthquake happened in Jamaica--In two minutes, it destroyed the town of Port Royal, at that time the capital of the island; and sunk the houses in a gulph 40 fathoms deep. It was attended with an hollow rumbling noise like that of thunder: the streets rose like the waves of the sea; first lifting up the horses, and then immediately throwing them down into deep pits: All the wells discharged their waters with the most violent agitation. The sea burst over its bounds, and deluged all that stood in its way. ”

“ Ten thousand men, in as many years, could not make such an alteration on the face of Vesuvius. Except the exhalations of sulphurous and vitriolic vapours, which broke out from different spots of the line abovementioned, and tinged the surface of the ashes and scoriae in those parts with either a deep or pale-yellow, with a reddish ochre colour, or a bright white and in some parts with a deep green and azure blue (so that is whole together had the effect of an iris) all had the appearance of a sandy desert. ”

“ About seven o'clock on the morning of the twenty-first, I was alarmed by an unusual noise upon the deck, and running upon, perceived that every remaining fail in the vessel, the fore sail alone excepted, was totally carried away. The sight was horrible, and the whole vessel presented a spectacle as dreadful to the feelings as mortifying to human pride. Fear had produced, not only all the helplessness of despondency, but all the mischievous freaks of insanity. ”

“ All was ruin and desolation Every countenance indicated the extremity of affliction and despair; and the whole country formed a wide scene of undescribable horror.
One of the most remarkable towns which was destroyed was Casal Nuova, where the Princess Genace Grimaldi, with more than four thousand of her subjects, perished in the same instant. An inhabitant happening to be on the summit of a neighbouring hill at the moment of the shock, and looking earnestly back to the residence of his family, could see no other remains of it than a white cloud which proceeded from the ruins on the houses. ”

“ This gleam of happiness, however, continued not long: a tremendous sea rolling after them, broke over their stern, tore every thing before it, stove in the steerage, carried away the rudder, shivered the wheel to pieces, and tore up the very ring-bolts of the deck-conveyed the men who stood at the wheel forward, and swept them overboard. Captain C.mpbell was standing, at the time, near the wheel, and fortunately had hold of the taffarel, which enabled him to resist in part the weight of the wave. he was, however, swept off his feet, and dashed against the main-mast. ”

“ They then endeavoured to steer as fast as they could for the land, which they knew could not be at any great distance, though they were unable to discover it through the hazy weather: the fore-sail was loosened; by great efforts in bailing, she righted a little, her gunnel was got above water, and she scudded as well as they could before the wind which still blew hard on shore; and about two o'clock the land appeared at a small distance ahead.
The love of life countervails all other considerations in the mind of man. ”

“ When we look around, and see people who thought themselves above the reach of want, and reclining, after a long apprenticeship of patient industry and persevering toil, upon the lap of late-earned independency and honest repose; when we see them by the fruits of exertions thus made, and of comforts thus enjoyed, in one fatal and destructive our,--what an awful lesson does this reflection awaken in our minds! ”

“ True courage is, according to the circumstances under which it is to operate, as rigidly tenacious and vigilant of life in one case, as it is indifferent and regardless in another; and I think it is a very strange contradiction in the human heart (although it often happens) , that a man who has the most unbounded courage, seeking death even in the canon's mouth, shall yet want the necessary resolution to make exertions to save his life in cases of ordinary danger. The unfortunate English purser could not collect courage sufficient to make an effort to save himself ”

“ Amidst these scenes of devastation, the escapes of some of the unhappy sufferers is extremely wonderful. Some of the inhabitants of houses which were thrown to a considerable distance, were dug out from their ruins unhurt. But these instances were few, and those who were so fortunate as to preserve their lives in such situations, were content to purchase existence at the expence of broken limbs and the most dreadful contusions.
During this calamitous scene, it is impossible to conceive the horrors and wretchedness of the uphappy inhabitants. The jaws of death were opened to swallow them up ”

“ Be that as it may, I argued with myself, in the height of my calamitous situation, upon the subject of fortitude and dejection, courage and cowardice and, notwithstanding the serious aspect of affairs, found myself listening to the suggestions of pride what a paltry thing to yield, while strength is left to struggle! ”

“ At seven o'clock in the evening there was observed by many people, a little to the south-west of Mr. Tod's house at Whitelaw, a dense light coloured cloud of a very uncommon appearance. It resembled an inverted cone, reaching from the ground to a considerable height in the atmosphere. Its motion towards the house was slow and majestic. a person of no great agility on seeing its approach could easily have escaped from it. It began at length to whirl round with great rapidity, accompanied with a loud, rattling noise. ”

“ But then to see them reduced to this situation, and struggling with infirmities, without the vigour of youth, or the exertions of manhood-without shelter from the weather, protection from power, or meat and drink to comfort the calls of declining nature, or interest enough to rescue them from the impending horrors of a gaol;--the accumulation of such misfortunes, is more than sufficient to excite compassion, but not always sufficient, as we find by melancholy example, to obtain relief. ”

“ That the unenlightened negroes should be led to plunder, when they could do it with safety, and without the curbs of morality and religion to restrain them, is a circumstance not to be wondered at; as it is consistent with the common depravity of human nature ”

“ About eleven o'clock on the night of the 12th of June, the inhabitants of Naples were all sensible of a violent shock of an earthquake; the undulatory motion was evidently from east to west, and appeared to have lasted near half a minute. The sky, which had been quite clear, was soon after covered with black clouds. The inhabitants of the towns and villages, which are very numerous at the foot of Vesuvius, felt this earthquake still more sensibly, and say, that the shock at first was from the bottom upwards, after which followed the undulation from east to west. ”

“ All the wells in the island, as well as those of Port-Royal, from one fathom to six or seven deep, threw their water out at the top with great violence. Above 12 miles from the sea, the earth gaped and spouted out, with a prodigious force, vast quantities of water into the air: yet the greatest violences were among the mountains and rocks; and it is a general opinion, that the nearer the mountains, the greater the shock; and the cause thereof lay among them. Most of the rivers were stopped up for 24 hours by the falling of the mountains ”

“ Yet, as great a sufferer as Port-Royal was, more houses were left standing therein then on the whole island besides. Scarce a planting-house, or sugar-house, was left standing in all Jamaica. A great part of them were swallowed up, houses; people, trees, and all, in one gap: in lieu of which, afterwards appeared great pools of water; which, when dried up, left nothing but sand, without any mark that ever tree or plant had grown thereon. The shock was so violent, that it threw people down on their knees or their fa es as they were running about for shelter. ”

“ In a vineyard not in the same line with the new-formed mountains just described, but in a right line from them, at the distance of little more than a mile from Torre del Greco, they found three or four more of these new-formed mountains with craters out of which the lava flowed, and by uniting with the streams that came from the higher mouths, and adding to their heat and fluidity, enabled the whole current to make so rapid a progress over the unfortunate town, as scarcely to allow its inhabitants sufficient time to escape with their lives. ”

“ It will be difficult to conceive a situation more terrible than what my house afforded from four o'clock in the afternoon until six o'clock the ensuing morning. Driven, as we were, from room to room, while the roofs, the floors, and the walls, were tumbling over head, or falling around us; the wind blowing with a noise and violence that cannot even now be reflected upon without alarm; the rain pouring down in torrents ”

“ The progress of the torrent was at first at the rate of seven miles a day, but it afterwards took four days to travel sixteen; wherever it directed its course, the whole appearance of nature was charged, several hills were formed in places which were formerly valleys, and a large lake was so entirely filled up by the melted mass, as not to leave a vestige remaining. In its course it descended upon a vineyard, belonging to a convent of Jesuits, which was formed upon an ancient and probably a very thin layer of lava, with a number of cavenrs and crevices under it. ”

“ It can hardly be doubted but that heaven and earth were combined in compleating our destruction. One element alone has been hardly ever known to occasion so extensive a devastation; are the sudden swelling and raging of the sea, we mmost reasonably attribute to the heavings of the earthquake; to which likewise the general ruin of our houses may be in some measure attributed.
I have seen the ruins of Lisbon ”

“ After the great shock, those people who escaped got on board ships in the harbour, where many continued above two months; the shocks all that time being so violent, and coming so thick, sometimes two or three in an hour, accompanied with frightful noises like a rushing wind, or a hollow rumbing thunder, with brimstone blasts, that they durst not come ashore. The consequence of the earthquake was a general sickness, from the noisome vapours belched forth, which swept away above 300. persons. ”