An account

of an extra

water from

a moun:

tain.

may meet in the regions of purity and righteousness, ferenity and joy.

30. The lake I have mentioned was the ordinary largest I had feen in this wild part, being effufion of above a mile in length, and more than half a mile broad; and the water that filled it, burst with the greatest impetuofity from the infide of a rocky mountain, that is very wonderful to behold. It is a vast craggy precipice, that ascends till it is almost out af fight, and by its gloomy and tremendous air, ftrikes the mind with a horror that has fomething pleafing in it. This amazing cliff ftands perpendicular at one end of the lake, at the diftance of a few yards, and has an opening at the bottom, that is wide enough for two coaches to enter at once, if the place was dry. In the middle of it, there is a deep channel, down which the water rushes with a mighty fwiftnefs and force, and on either fide, the ftone rifes a yard above the impetuous stream. The afcent is easy, flat and plane. How far it goes, I know not, being afraid to ascend more than forty yards; not only on account of the terrors common to the place, from the fall of fo much water with a strange kind of roar, and the height of the arch which covers the torrent all the way; but because as I went up, there was of a fudden, an encrease of noife fo very terrible, that my heart failed me, and a trem

The rock

bling almost disabled me. moved under me, as the frightful founds encreased, and as quick as it was poffible for me, I came into day again. It was well II did; for I had not been many minutes out, before the water overflowed its channel, and filled the whole opening in rufhing to the lake. The increase of the water, and the violence of the discharge, were an astonishing fight. I had a great efcape.

of the erupa

infide of the

den en

31. As the rocky mountain I have men- The caufe tioned, is higher than either Snowden intion of waNorth-Wales, or Kedar-Idris in Merioneth-ter from the fhire, (which have been thought the highest mountain, mountains in this ifland), that is, it is full and its fuda mile and an half high from the basis, as I create, found by afcending it with great toil on the fide that was from the water, and the top was a flat dry rock, that had not the leaft fpring, or piece of water on it, how fhall we account for the rapid flood that proceeded from its infide? Where did this great water come from?—I answer, might it not flow from the great abyss and the great encrease of it, and the fearful noise, and the motion of the rock, be owing to fome violent commotion in the abyfs, occafioned by fome natural or fupernatural caufe?

quakes.

32. That there is fuch an abyss, no one The origin can doubt that believes revelation, and from of earthreafon and history it is credible, that there are violent concuffions on this vaft collection

of

Nov. 1.

3755.

of water, by the divine appointment: and
therefore, I imagine it is from thence the
water of this mountain proceeds, and the
great overflowing and terrifying found at cer-
tain times. To this motion of the abyss, by
the divine power exerted on it, I afcribe the
earthquakes; and not to vapor, or electricity.
As to electricity, which Dr. Stukeley makes
the cause of the deplorable downfall of Lif
bon*, in his book lately published, (called,
The Philosophy of Earthquakes), there are
many things to be objected against its being
the origin of fuch calamities:-one objection
is, and it is an infuperable one, that electri-
cal fhocks are ever momentary, by every ex-
periment, but earthquakes are felt for feveral
minutes. Another is, that
Another is, that many towns have
been fwallowed up in earthquakes, tho' Lif
bon was only overthrown. Such was the
cafe of the city of Callao, within two leagues
of Lima. Tho' Lima was only tumbled
into ruins, October 28, 1746; yet Callao
funk downright, with all its inhabitants, and
an unfathomable fea now covers the finest
port in Peru, as I have feen on the fpot.-
In the earthquake at Jamaica, June 7, 1692,
in which feveral thousands perifhed, it is
certain, that not only many houses, and a
great number of people, were intirely swal-
lowed up; but that, at many of the gapings
or openings of the earth, torrents of water
that formed great rivers, iffued forth, This

I had from a man of veracity then on the fpot, who was an eye-witness of these things, and expected himself every minute to defcend to the bowels of the earth, which heaved and swelled like a rolling fea. Now to me the electrical stroke does not appear fufficient to produce these things. The power of electricity, to be fure is vaft and amazing, It may cause great tremors and undulations of the earth, and bring down all the buildings of a great city; but as to splitting the earth to great depths, and forcing up torrents of water, where there was no fign of the fluid element before, I queftion much if the vehemence of the elemental electric fire does this.Befide, when mountains and cities fink into the earth, and the deepest lakes are now seen to fill all the place where they once ftood, as has been the case in many countries, where could these mighty waters come, but from the abyss?The great lake Oroquantur in Pegu, was once a vast city. In Jamaica, there is a large deep lake where once a mountain ftood. -In an earthquake in China, in the province of Sanci, deluges of water burst out of the earth, Feb. 7, 1556, and inundated the country for 180 miles. Many more instances of this kind I might produce, exclufive of Sodom, the ground of which was inundated by an irruption of waters from beneath, (which now forms the dead fea) after the

city

city was deftroyed by fire from above; that the land which had been defiled with the unnatural lufts of the inhabitants might be no more inhabited, but remain a lafting monument of the divine vengeance on fuch crimes, to the end of the world: and the ufe I would make of those I have mentioned, is to fhew, that these mighty waters were from the furious concuffion of the abyss that caused the earthquakes. Electricity, I think, can never make feas and vaft lakes to be where there were none before. Locherne, in the county of Fermanagh, in the province of Ulfter in Ireland, is thirty three miles long, and fourteen broad, and as the old Irish chronicle informs us, was once a place where large and populous towns appeared, till for the great iniquity of the inhabitants, the people and their fair habitations were deftroyed in an earthquake, and mighty waters from the earth covered the place, and formed this lake. Could the electrical ftroke produce this fea that was not to be found there before the deftruction? Is it not more reasonable to fuppofe, that fuch vaft waters have been forced by a fupernatural commotion from the great abyfs, in the earthquake that destroyed the towns which once ftood in this place?

To this then, (till I am better informed), I muft afcribe fuch earthquakes as produce great rivers and lakes: and where no waters appear, I believe the earthquakes are caused

by