An earthquake that caused such marked changes in the appearance of the earth's surface, naturally made great changes in the direction of the rivers. In one case the end of a small valley was so completely filled with stones and dirt that the water was dammed up, producing a lake two miles in length and one mile in breadth. In a similar manner no less than 215 lakes were formed in different portions of Calabria.
Of course, in the flat country at the base of the Apennines, frequent landslides occurred, the land sliding into great chasms and continuing to move down them for considerable distances, so that in many places pieces of land containing olive trees, vineyards, and green fields, were bodily transported for distances of several miles. This, moreover, was done so quietly as to leave the houses entirely uninjured, and the trees and other vegetation continuing to grow up with apparently no marked decrease in vitality.
As is usual in such cases, the sudden and strong blows acting on the waters of the sea, killed great numbers of fish just as does the explosion of dynamite at a point below the surface of the water; and in a similar way the fish that usually live at the bottom of the sea in the soft mud, being disturbed by the earthquake shocks, came near the surface where they were caught in vast numbers.
It is an interesting fact that during this earthquake the volcano of Stromboli showed a marked decrease in the volume of smoke it gave out. Etna, however, was observed to emit large quantities of vapor during the convulsion.
Lyell tells the following story of the Prince of Scilla, who with many of his vassals sought safety in their fishing boats. Suddenly, on the night of February 5th, while some of the people were sleeping in the boat, and others were resting on a low plain near the sea, in the neighborhood, another shock occurred, a great mass was torn from a neighboring mountain and hurled with a crash on the plain, and immediately afterwards a wave, twenty feet or more in height, rolled over the level plain, sweeping away the people. It then retreated, but soon rushed back again, bringing with it many of the bodies of the people who had perished. At the same time all the boats were either sunk or dashed against the beach, and the Prince with 1,430 of his people was destroyed.
The total number of deaths caused by this earthquake in the Calabrias and Sicily were estimated by Hamilton at 40,000. Besides these about 20,000 more perished in epidemics that followed the earthquake, or died for lack of proper food.
[CHAPTER XXVI]
THE GREAT LISBON EARTHQUAKE OF 1755
Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, on the Tagus River, is built along both banks for five miles, and on several small neighboring hills. It is supplied with water by means of an aqueduct, called the Alcantara, which brings the water from springs about nine miles to the northwest. For portions of its length the aqueduct is placed underground, but where it crosses the deep valley of the Alcantara it is supported, for a distance of 2,400 feet, by a number of marble arches, which in one place are 260 feet in height. This fact is put forward not merely for the sake of its artistic interest, but because, strange to relate, this part of the aqueduct remained uninjured during that great earthquake, the greatest of modern times.