There was formerly near the port of Pisca, in Peru, a famous city, situate on the sea shore, which was almost entirely destroyed by an earthquake that happened the 19th of October 1682, for the sea having extended beyond its common bounds, swallowed up this unfortunate place with every person that was in it. If we consult historians and travellers, we shall find relations of many earthquakes and eruptions of volcanos, whose effects have been as terrible as those we have just mentioned. Pesidonius, whom Strabo quotes in his first book, relates, that a city in Phoenicia, near Sidon, was swallowed up by an earthquake, with the neighbouring territory, and even two thirds of Sidon; this effect was not so sudden but that many of the inhabitants had time to avoid it by flight. This shock extended throughout all Syria, and as far as the Cyclade islands, and into Euboea, where the fountains of Arethusa suddenly stopped, and did not reappear for many days after, and then by many new springs remote from the old ones; that this earthquake did not cease from shaking the island, sometimes in one part and sometimes in another, until the earth opened in the valley of Lepanta, and ejected a great quantity of lava and other inflamed matters. Pliny, in his first book, chap. 84, relates, that in the reign of Tiberius an earthquake happened which overthrew twelve towns in Asia: and in his second book he mentions a prodigy caused by an earthquake. St. Augustin records, that by a great earthquake there were towns overthrown in Lybia. In the time of Trajan, the town of Antioch, and a great part of the adjacent country were swallowed up by an earthquake; and in the time of Justinian, in 528, it was a second time destroyed by the same cause, with upwards of 40,000 of its inhabitants. Sixty years after, in the time of St. Gregory, it felt the effects of a third earthquake, when 60,000 of its inhabitants perished. In the time of Saladin, in 1182, most of the towns of Syria and Judea were destroyed by the same calamity. In Calabria and Apulia, there have been more earthquakes than in any other part of Europe. In the time of Pope Pius II. all the churches and palaces of Naples were overthrown, and above 30,000 of its inhabitants killed; the remainder were obliged to live in tents till houses were built. In 1629, there were earthquakes in Apulia, which destroyed 7000 persons, and in 1638, the town of St. Euphemia was swallowed up, and there remains only a stinking lake in its place. Ragusa and Smyrna, at the same time, were also almost destroyed. There was an earthquake in 1692, which extended into England, Holland, Flanders, Germany, and France; it was chiefly felt on the sea coasts and near large rivers; it shook at least 2600 square leagues; it lasted only two minutes, and the motion was more considerable on mountains than in vallies.[O] On the 10th of July, 1688, there was an earthquake at Smyrna, which began by a motion from west to east; the castle was