.--M.]

II. The near approach of a comet may injure or destroy the globe which
we inhabit; but the changes on its surface have been hitherto produced
by the action of volcanoes and earthquakes. [82] The nature of the soil
may indicate the countries most exposed to these formidable concussions,
since they are caused by subterraneous fires, and such fires are kindled
by the union and fermentation of iron and sulphur. But their times
and effects appear to lie beyond the reach of human curiosity; and the
philosopher will discreetly abstain from the prediction of earthquakes,
till he has counted the drops of water that silently filtrate on
the inflammable mineral, and measured the caverns which increase by
resistance the explosion of the imprisoned air. Without assigning the
cause, history will distinguish the periods in which these calamitous
events have been rare or frequent, and will observe, that this fever of
the earth raged with uncommon violence during the reign of Justinian.
[83] Each year is marked by the repetition of earthquakes, of such
duration, that Constantinople has been shaken above forty days; of such
extent, that the shock has been communicated to the whole surface of the
globe, or at least of the Roman empire. An impulsive or vibratory
motion was felt: enormous chasms were opened, huge and heavy bodies
were discharged into the air, the sea alternately advanced and retreated
beyond its ordinary bounds, and a mountain was torn from Libanus, [84]
and cast into the waves, where it protected, as a mole, the new harbor
of Botrys [85] in Phoenicia. The stroke that agitates an ant-hill may
crush the insect-myriads in the dust; yet truth must extort confession
that man has industriously labored for his own destruction. The
institution of great cities, which include a nation within the limits of
a wall, almost realizes the wish of Caligula, that the Roman people had
but one neck. Two hundred and fifty thousand persons are said to have
perished in the earthquake of Antioch, whose domestic multitudes were
swelled by the conflux of strangers to the festival of the Ascension.
The loss of Berytus [86] was of smaller account, but of much greater
value. That city, on the coast of Phoenicia, was illustrated by the
study of the civil law, which opened the surest road to wealth and
dignity: the schools of Berytus were filled with the rising spirits of
the age, and many a youth was lost in the earthquake, who might have
lived