The great earthquake which shook Calabria and North-Eastern Sicily in the year 1783 stands out in rather striking contrast with other disturbances of history, because it was carefully studied by a great number of skilled observers. Among them were Vivenzio, the court physician of the King of Naples, who has supplied us with a narrative of the events; Grimaldi, the Minister of War, who at the King's command visited the region and has left accurate measurements of the greater and lesser fissures associated with the earthquake; Pignaturo, a physician, who kept a record of the long-continuing shocks, together with an estimate of their intensities; the French geologist Dolomieu; and Sir William Hamilton, who was the British Ambassador at Naples. The Academy of Naples sent a special commission to the scene of the earthquake's destruction, and prepared a bulky report of great scientific value. Calabria is a country which has many times been racked with earthquakes; the disturbances being almost as conspicuous for number as in Japan. The areas shaken have not usually been great in extent, but as regards the geological changes and the loss to life by which they have been accompanied, they rank among the greatest in history. The shocks of 1783, which cost thirty thousand lives, came without warning on February 5th, and in two minutes threw down the structures in hundreds of cities and villages scattered through Calabria and North-Eastern Sicily. The great central granite formation of Calabria, which was but slightly disturbed by the first shock, was more heavily shaken by those which followed; and it was noted by the early writers on this earthquake that the mountains had been a little raised in comparison with the neighbouring plains at their bases. The fact of the elevation of mountains by earthquakes or some other underground disturbance has been elsewhere noted. On November 19th, 1822, a great earthquake shook the Chilian coast for a distance of twelve hundred miles north and south. The greatest energy was shown about one hundred miles north of Valparaiso, where the coast was found to have risen suddenly from three to five feet for a distance which has never been accurately ascertained, but which is known to have exceeded thirty-five miles. In 1835 and in 1837 similar elevations of the coast were caused by earthquakes at Concepcion, about three hundred miles south of Valparaiso, and at Valdivia, about two hundred miles south of Concepcion. Charles Darwin, in the _Voyage of the "Beagle,"_ says: "I have convincing proofs that this part of the continent of South America has been elevated near the coast at least from four to five hundred feet, and in some parts from one thousand to thirteen hundred feet, since the epoch of living shells." Darwin finds his evidence in the raised beaches near the coast on which these shells abound. That this uplift has been going on by small and sudden movements, from a foot to ten feet at each