ury to the inhabitants. The olive-trees,
also, continued to grow on the land which had slid into the valley, and
bore the same year an abundant crop of fruit.

[Illustration: Fig. 84.

Changes of the surface at Fra Ramondo, near Soriano, in Calabria.

1, Portion of a hill covered with olives thrown down.
2, New bed of the river Caridi. 3, Town of Soriano.

]

Two tracts of land on which a great part of the town of Polistena stood,
consisting of some hundreds of houses, were detached into a contiguous
ravine, and nearly across it, about half a mile from their original
site; and what is most extraordinary, several of the inhabitants were
dug out from the ruins alive and unhurt.

Two tenements, near Mileto, called the Macini and Vaticano, occupying an
extent of ground about a mile long and half a mile broad, were carried
for a mile down a valley. A thatched cottage, together with large olive
and mulberry trees, most of which remained erect, were carried uninjured
to this extraordinary distance. According to Hamilton, the surface
removed had been long undermined by rivulets, which were afterwards in
full view on the bare spot deserted by the tenements. The earthquake
seems to have opened a passage in the adjoining argillaceous hills,
which admitted water charged with loose soil into the subterranean
channels of the rivulets immediately under the tenements, so that the
foundations of the ground set in motion by the earthquake were loosened.
Another example of subsidence, where the edifices were not destroyed,
is mentioned by Grimaldi, as having taken place in the city of
Catanzaro, the capital of the province of that name. The houses in the
quarter called San Giuseppe subsided with the ground to various depths
from two to four feet, but the buildings remained uninjured.

[Illustration: Fig. 85.

Landslips near Cinquefrondi, caused by the earthquake of 1783.]

It would be tedious, and our space would not permit us, to follow the
different authors through their local details of landslips produced in
minor valleys; but they are highly interesting, as showing to how great
an extent the power of rivers to widen valleys, and to carry away large
portions of soil towards the sea, is increased where earthquakes are of
periodical occurrence. Among other territories, that of Cinquefrondi,
was greatly convulsed, various portions of soil being raised or sunk,
and innumerable fissures traversing the country in all direct