Meffina, where I had been kindly and hofpitably treated, and proceed. ed in my fperonara along the Sicilian coaft to the point of the entrance of the Faro, where I went afhore, and found a priest who had been there the night between the 5th and the 6th of February, when the great wave paffed over that point, carried off boats, and above twenty-four unhappy people, tearing up trees, and leaving fome hundred weight of fish it had brought with it on the dry land. He told me, he had been himfelf covered with the wave, and with difficulty faved his life. He at first faid the water was hot; but as I was curious to come at the truth of this fact, which would have concluded much, I asked him if he was very fure of it? and being preffed, it came to be no more than the water having been as warm as it usually is in fummer. He faid, the wave rofe to a great height, and came on with noife, and fuch rapidity that it was impoffible to efcape. The tower on the point was half deftroyed, and a poor priest that was in it loft his life. From hence I croffed over to Scilla. Having meet with my friend the Padre Minafi, a Dominican friar, a worthy man and able naruralift, who is a native of Scilla, and is actually employed by the academy of Naples to give a defcription of the phenomena that have attended the earthquake in these parts, with his affiftance on the fpot, I perfectly . understood the nature of the formidable wave that was faid to have been boiling hot, and had certainly proved fatal to the baron of the country, the prince of Scilla, who was fwept off the fhore into the fea by this wave, with 2,473 of his unfortunate fubjects. The following is the fact. The prince of Scilla, having remarked, that during the first horrid fhock (which happened

about noon the 5th of February) part of a rock near Scilla had been detached into the fea, and fearing that the rock of Scilla, on which his castle and town is fituated, might alfo be detached, thought it fafer to prepare boats, and retire to a little port or beach furrounded by rocks at the foot of the rock. The fecond fhock of the earthquake, after midnight, detached a whole mountain, (much higher than that of Scilla, and partly calcareous, and partly cretaceous), fituated between the Torre del Cavallo and the rock of Scilla. This having fallen with violence into the fea (at that time perfectly calm) raised the fatal wave, which I have above difcribed to have broken upon the neck of land, called the Punta del Faro, in the island of Sicily, with fuch fury, which returning with great noife and celerity directly upon the beach, where the prince and the unfortunate inhabitants of Scilla had taken refuge. either dafhed them with their boats and richeft effects against the rocks, or whirled them into the fea; those who had escaped the first and greateft wave were carried off by a fecond and third, which were lefs confiderable, and immediately followed the first. I spoke to several men, women, and children here, who had been cruelly maimed, and fome of whom had been carried into the fea by this unforeseen accident. Here, faid one, my head was forced through the door of the cellar, which he fhewed me was broken. There, faid another, was I drove into a barrel. Then a woman would fhew me her child, all over deep wounds from the ftones and timber, &c. that were mixed with the water, and dashing about in this narrow port; but all affured me, they had not preceived the leaft fymptom of heat in the water, though I dare fay, Sir, you

will read many well attested accounts of this water having been hot; of many dead bodies thrown up which appeared to have been parboiled by it; and of many living perfons, who had evidently been fcolded by this hot wave: fo difficult is it to arrive at truth. Had I been fatisfied with the first anfwer of the priest at Punta del Faro, and fet it down in my journal, who could have doubted but that this wave had been of hot water? Now that we are well acquainted with the caufe of this fatal wave, we know it could not have been hot; but the teftimony of fo many unfortunate fufferers from it, is decifive. A fact which I was told, and which was attefted by many here, is very extraordinary indeed: a woman of Scilla, four months gone with child, was fwept into the fea by the wave, and was taken up alive, floating on her back at fome distance, nine hours after. She did not even miscarry, and is now perfectly well; and, had he not been gone up into the country, they would have fhewn her to me. They told me, fhe bad been used to fwim, as do most of the women in this part of Calabria. Her anxiety and fufferings, however, had arrived at fo great a pitch, that just at the time that the boat, which took her up, appeared, he was trying to force her head under water, to put a period to her miferable existence. The Padre Minafi told me another curious circumftance that happened in this neighbourhood, which to his knowlege was ftrictly true. A girl of about eighteen years of age, was buried under the ruins of a houfe fix days, having had her foot, at the ancle, almost cut off by the edge of a barrel that fell upon it; the dust and mortar stopped the blood; fhe never had the affiftance of a furgeon; but the foot of itself dropped off,

and the wound is perfectly healed without any other affiftance but that of nature. If of fuch extraordinary circumftances, and of hair-breadth escapes, an account was to be taken in all the deftroyed towns of Calabria Ultra and Sicily, they would, as I faid before, compofe a large volume. I have only recorded a few of the most extraordinary, and fuch as I had from the most undoubted authority. In my way back to Naples (where I arrived the 23d of May) along the coaft of the two Calabrias and the Principato Citra, I only went on fhore at Tropea, Paula, and the bay of Palinurus. I found Tropea (beautifully fituated on a rock overhanging the fea) but little damaged : however, all the inhabitants were in barracks. At Paula the fame. The fishermen here told me, they continued to take a great abundance of fish, as they had done ever fince the commencement of the prefent calamity. At Tropea, the 15th of May, there was a fevere fhock of an earthquake, but of a very fhort duration. There were five fhocks during my stay in Calabria and Sicily; three of them rather alarming and at Meffina, in the night-time, I conftantly felt a little tremour of the earth, which has been obferved by many of the Meffinefe. I am really afhamed, fir, of fending fuch an unconnected hafty extract of my journal; but when I reflect, that unless I fend it off directly, the Royal Society will be broken up for the fummer feafon, and the fubject will become ftale before its next meeting; of two evils I prefer to chufe the leaft. Such rough draughts however (though ever fo imperfect and incorrect) have, as in paintings, the merit of a first fketch, and a kind of fpirit that is often loft when the picture is correctly finished, If you confider the

fatigue

tom of the fea, and moft probably between Stromboli and Calabria Ultra (for from that quarter all agree, that the fubterraneous noifes feem to have proceeded); and that the foundation of a new ifland or volcano may have been laid, though it may be ages, which to nature are but moments, before is is completed, and appears above the furface of the fea. Nature is ever active; but her actions are, in general, carried on fo very flowly, as fcarcely to be perceived by mortal eye, or recorded in the very fhort space of what we call history, let it be ever fo ancient. Perhaps too, the whole destruction I have been defcribing may have proceeded fimply from the exhalation of confined vapours, generated by the fermentation of fuch minerals as produce volcanoes, which have efcaped where they met with the least refiftance, and muft naturally in a greater degree have af fected the plain than the high and

more folid grounds around it. When the account of the Royal Academy of Naples is publifhed, with maps, plans, and drawings, of the curious fpots I have described, this rude and imperfect account will, I flatter my. felf, be of ufe: without the help of plans and drawings you well know, Sir, the great difficulty there is in making one's felf intelligible on fuch a fubject.

The inclofed letter, which I received while I was in Calabria Ultra, from the marquis Ippolito, a gentleman of Catanzaro, and an able naturalift, will give you the particulars of the phenomena that have been produced by the late earthquakes in Calabria Citra, my time having permitted me to vifit only a part of that province. I once more then crave your kind indulgence, and that of the members of our refpectable fociety, if you think proper to communicate this hafty paper to them.

"I have the honour to be, &c."

Black Canker (a fpecies of caterpillar) which in fome years have been fo numerous as to cut off the farmer's hopes in a few days. In other years, however, the damage has been little, and in others nothing. About twenty years ago the whole country was nearly ftripped; and this year it has been fubjected to a fimilar fate. Many thoufands of acres, upon which a fairer profpect for a crop of turnips has not been feen for many years, have been plowed up; and as, from the feafon being now tar fpent, little profit can be expected from a fecond fowing; the loss to the farmers, individually, will be very confiderable, and to the county immenfe.

"It was observed in the cankeryear above mentioned, that, prior to the appearance of the caterpillars, great numbers of yellow flies were feen bufy among the turnip plants; and it was then fufpected, that the canker was the caterpillar ftate of the yellow fly; and fince that time it has been remarked, that cankers have regularly followed the appearance of thefe flies. From their more frequently appearing on the fea-coaft, and from the vast quantities which have, I believe, at different times, been obferved on the beach washed up by the tide, it has been a received opinion among the farmers, that they are not natives of this country, but come across the ocean, and obfervations this year greatly corroborate the idea. Fishermen upon the eastern coaft declare, that they actually faw them arrive in cloud-like flights; and from the teftimony of many, it feems to be an indifputable fact, that they first made their appearance on the eastern coaft; and, moreover, that on their first being obferved, they lay upon and near the cliffs fo thick and fo languid, that they

5

might have been collected into heaps, lying, it is faid, in fome places two inches thick. From thence they proceeded into the country, and even at the distance of three or four miles from the coaft they were seen in multitudes refembling fwarms of bees. About ten days after the appearance of the flies, the young caterpillars were first obferved on the under fides of the leaves of the turnips, and in feven or eight days more, the entire plants, except the. stronger fibres, were eaten up. A border under the hedge was regularly fpared until the body of the inclofure was finished; but this done, the border was foon ftripped, and the gateway, and even the roads have been feen covered with caterpillars travelling in queft of a fresh fupply of turnips; for the graffes, and indeed every plant, except the turnip and the charlock (finapis arvenfis) they entirely neglect, and even die at their roots, without at tempting to feed upon them. This deftruction has not been confined within a few miles of the castern coaft, but has reached, more or leis, into the very center of the county. The mischief, however, in the western parts of Norfolk, and even on the north coaft, has been lefs general; but I am afraid it may be faid, with a great deal of truth, that one half of the turnips in the county have been cut off by this vo racious animal.

"A circumstance fo difcouraging to industry, and injurious to the public at large, will, I flatter myself, Sir, be thought a fufficient apology for my troubling you with a relation of it, and for ny taking the liberty of fending you a male and a female fly, alfo one of the animals in its caterpillar, and one which is in its chryfalis ftate, for your infpection, hoping that the public may become acquainted