layers of harder matter, not so easily dissolved or calcined, then according to the figures of these layers, and in proportion to the resistance which the water thereby meets with, we are entertained with a confusion of traces and channels, imagined to be sheep, camels, horses, nay, sometimes men, women and children, whom they suppose to have undergone the like fate with their tents, of being converted into stone. These fountains, I observed, had been frequently stopped up, or rather, ceasing to run at one place, broke out in others; which circumstance seems not only to account for the number of cones, but for that variety likewise of traces that are continued from one or other of them, quite down to the river Zenati, whose channel is at about the distance of a quarter of a mile.

This place, thus distinguished by these fountains, gives back, in riding over it, the like hollow fallacious sound with the Salfatara, near Naples, and made us not a little afraid of sinking every moment through it. And as, from these circumstances, the ground below was probably hollow, may not the air within these caverns, by escaping through these fountains, afford that mixture of shrill, murmuring, or deep sounds, one or other of which are perpetually issuing out with the water? The Arabs (to quote their strength of imagination once more) affirm these sounds to be the music of the Jenoune, or fairies, who are supposed, in a particular manner, to make their abodes at this place, and to be the grand agents

in

in all these extraordinary sounds and appear

ances.

There are likewise here other natural curiosities, worthy of our notice. For the chalky stone, being calcined or dissolved by the scalding water, into a fine impalpable powder, and carried down afterwards with the stream, lodges itself upon the lips of the channels; or else by embracing some intervening twigs, straws, or other bodies immediately hardens; and shooting into a bright fibrous substance like the asbestos, forms itself into a variety of glittering figures and beautiful crystallizations.

The river of El Hammah, and others in the Jereed, which are often very large and copious, have their sources, which are sometimes one or two at most, in large extensive plains, far removed from any chain of mountains; and as little or no rain falls into these districts, this circumstance alone seems to be no small testimony in favour of that system, which deduces the origin of fountains from the great abyss. The wells, which I have taken notice of in Wadreag, p. 141. seem further to confirm it.

The weight of the water of the Hammam Mereega is to that of rain water, as 856 to 830; that of Warran, as 837; that of Meskouteen, as 850; and that of Mellwan, as 910. I had no convenience or opportunity of weighing the rest.

SEC

277

SECTION IV.

Of the Earthquakes.

BESIDES the hot mineral effluvia that are continually discharged by these thermæ, or Hammam, there still remain below the surface, some vast and inexhaustible funds of sulphur, nitre, and other inflammable bodies, of which, the frequency and violence of earthquakes may be a sufficient proof. The earthquakes, ann. 1723 and 1724, shook down a number of houses, and stopt the course of several fountains; but by one of those violent concussions, ann. 1716, a large piece of ground at Wamre, lying in an easy descent, with a well, a few trees, and a farm house upon it, glided down, all together, for the space of a furlong, till they were one or other of them stopped by the channel of the river Harbeene, that empties itself there into the Shelliff. Several of the breaches, together with some pieces of the house turned upside down, lie at a distance from each other, and are to this day a standing monument of this catastrophe. I was informed, that the like accident happened, at the same time, in some of the mountainous districts of Boujeiah and El Khadarah; literally answering, in some degree at least, to the expression of the Psalmist, that the mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like young sheep; or that the earth shall

VOL. I.

20

shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage, Isa. xxiv. 20. The greatest shock which we perceived at Algiers, (1724) reached from Miliana to Bona, the air being then clear and temperate, and the quicksilver standing at the greatest height; whilst other concussions were found, upon inquiry, to be of small extent. At these times, the barometer was not affected with any sudden alterations, neither was there any occasional change in the air, which was, as at other times, of its usual temperature, without being more calm or windy, hazy or serene.

Earthquakes also have sometimes been felt at sea. In the same year, when I was aboard the Gazella, an Algerine cruiser of fifty guns, bound to Bona to relieve the garrison, we felt three prodigious shocks, one after another, as if a weight, at each time of twenty or thirty ton, had fallen from a great height upon the ballast. This happened when we were five leagues to the southward of the Seven Capes, and could not reach ground with a line of two hundred fathom. The captain, Hassan Rice, told me, that a few years before, when he was upon a cruise, he felt a much greater, at the distance of forty leagues, as they computed, to the westward of the Rock of Lisbon.

The earthquakes, during my stay at Algiers, fell out generally at the end of the summer, or in the autumn, a day or two after great rains *. The

The inhabitants of Jamaica expect an earthquake every year, and some of them think they follow their great rains. Sir

Hans

The cause perhaps may arise from the extraordinary constipation or closeness of the earth's surface at such times, whereby the subterraneous streams will be either sent back or confined; whereas, in summer, the whole country being full of deep chinks and chasms, the inflammable particles have an easier escape.

SECTION V.

Of their Quarries, Wells, Fossils, Minerals, &c.

We cannot trace any of the preceding phenomena, or scarce any other branch of the natural history, much lower than the surface. Those quarries of marble*, which are taken notice of by the ancients, are not known at present; and indeed the small quantity of marble that appears to have been used in the most sumptuous buildings of this country, would induce us to believe, that either there never were such quarries, or that the marble was sent away to other places.

The materials that were used in all the ancient edifices of this country, as Jol Cæsarea, Sitifi, Cirta, Carthage, &c. are not so much different, either in their colour or texture, from the soft and harder kinds of the Heddington stone near Oxford; whereas, the marble of Numidia, as it

is

Hans Sloane's Introd. to the Hist. of Jamaica, p. 44. Phil. Trans. No. 209. p. 77. Plin. Hist. Nat. 1. ii. cap. 80. takes notice of the same thing.

* Plin. Nat. Hist. 1. v. c. 3. Solinus Polyhist. c. 26.