and entire satisfaction and relience. As to those who were more immediately placed under his orders, he could say that he never witnessed during the whole course of their services more zeal, more energy, and more determined perseverance than was displayed, not only by the officers of Navy, but by the Marine officers in the late expedition. As to himself, if he had been able to perform any services useful to his country or creditable to himself, he owed it entirely to his Gallant Commander-in-chief Sir Robert Stopford, who placed a sufficient confidence in him duing the illness of the Army officer, who was appointed to the command of the troops. The Gallant Admiral thought proper to give him his confidence and the command of the allied troops employed in the expedition. It was certainly a new situation for a Naval officer like himself to be placed in, but when the Gallant Admiral gave him that command he thought it his duty to use the whole of his zeal, exertion, and energies to carry out the Admiral's views to the utmost extent in his power. He believed the Gallant Admiral had told them that he had done this to the utmost extent in his power, from the moment he received the command of the army until the moment he returned that command. The Gallant Admiral had given them such a perfect account of the services of the army and navy on the coast of Syria that there was but little for him to say on the subject. But there was one thing he must tell them, as the Gallant Admiral had adverted to it. When he landed in D'journi Bay, he found himself surrounded by innumerable difficultics—in an inaccessible country, with deep gorges, high mountains, and a powerful army to contend with. To meet all those they had but a small force, but from the energies displayed by the Marines and the Turkish troops, he found himself in a state to combat all the difficulties opposed to them; and, he was happy to say that, during the short compaign there of one month, the services of the Marines, of the Turkish, and of the Austrian troops overcame obstacles greater than ever had been overcome before, and were the greatest feats of the service since 1784. The Gallant Admiral was good enough to allude to his having seen some land service in Portugal in the time of the illustrious Duke of Wellington. He well remembered, in his boyish days, being at the battle of Busaco, when the gallant Duke commanded a newly levied army, but then his troops were British. They had never been tried before then, and it must have been a most anxious time for the Duke. He well remembered the British troops were attacked on one side and the Portuguese on the other, and he saw that illustrious general near a particular spot watching the effects of this terrible attack on his left and right. He saw the gallant resistance of the forces commanded by Sir T. Picton, supported by his honourable friend near him, Sir H. Pakenham, and a more brilliant attack no man ever saw, and it was not till then that he saw what British troops and officers could do against a large and superior French army. That lesson he had endeavoured never to forget. (Loud cheers.) It was then he acquired all his knowledge of military affairs, though, as a naval officer, it was presumption in him to say he knew anything at all of them. If, however, he knew anything at all, that knowledge he had acquired under the Duke of Wellington. (Loud cheering.) He would not detain them longer, except to say one word on the discipline of the navy. The Mediterrancan fleet, commanded as it was,(Hear, hear)-and he had always fought against the unmanned state in which it was kept was a perfect example of discipline, and nothing could prove its beautiful discipline and energy, more than that it should in a few hours have silenced the forts at Acre, which it took Napoleon more than once to try to do, and in which he never succeeded. He could not refer without deep regret to the loss of Colonel Walker, commanding the Marines. He was a most gallant officer, who, had he lived, would have led the Marines on in the most conspicuous manner to his own and their glory, and to the honour of the nation. ` (Loud cheers.) Before he sat down he inust not forget Admiral Walker, who, though a young officer, was in command of the Turkish fleet. He believed there was no officer who had served in the Syrian war who would not allow that Admiral Walker had displayed great zeal, energy, and integrity, and had brought the

Turkish fleet into a state of highly improved discipline. He was satisfied if that gallant officer remained in that post some short time longer, he would discipline that fleet so as to enable it to come forward on some future day to second the fleets of Great Britain, the natural ally of Turkey, in repressing any Foreign power, who should attempt to usurp the dominion of the seas, but who who he would venture to predict would never succeed in their attempt to usurp, for so lons as British seamen and British officers continued to be what they were, and the British nation stood by them in the way it did, they were enabled to defy the whole world. (Tremendous cheering.)

The health of Major Morrison and the officers of Her Majesty's Royal Marines who had served in the Syrian expedition, was then given with much applause : and the company did not separate till a late hour.

ACCOUNT OF THE LATE DREADFUL EARTHQUAKE AT TERCEIRA.-Western Islands.

The town of Praya was situated on the bay of the same name, at the east end on the island of Terceira, and about twelve English miles from Angra, its capital. It contained 562 houses. Near it are the villages of Lageas, containing 532 houses,-Villa Nova containing 206,-Argoaloa containing 215 houses,-and Foule do Bastaido containing 144 houses. The total population of these places amounts to more than 9,000 souls; the number of houses was nearly 2,000. The part of the island in which Praya and these villages were situated, is the most fertile of the whole; on which account, it was the part selected by the first discoverers for their residence, and its population was entirely agricultural. It is the part from which the levies were principally made to resist the landing of an expedition in favour of Don Miguel, in August, 1829, when a small military force with their assistance, and nd the possession of the strong forts on the Bay of Praya, beat off the much superior force of Don Miguel.

The town of Praya had in the year 1614 been totally destroyed by an earthquake, which considerably injured the town of Angra, and was felt severely in the island of St. Michael. Since that time it had escaped injury, although menaced by many severe shocks of earthquake.

On the 12th of June last, at 4 P.M., a violent shock of earthquake was felt at Praya, extending with diminished force to the westward. At 5h. 25m. a second and more violent one was felt; on the 13th the trembling continued with short intervals, but diminished violence during the whole day. On the 14th, at 4 A.M., a perfectly perceptible undulation of the ground took place, which destroyed all those buildings which had been weakened by the former shocks. The inhabitants of Praya then retreated to the fields in the neighbourhood for safety. With the exception of occasional slight motions, the island was undisturbed during the remainder of the 14th, and hopes were entertained that the convulsions had ceased. But on the 15th, at 3 A.M., a violent trembling and horizontal undulation of the ground commenced, and continued with intervals of ten minutes, and a duration of about ten seconds until 3h. 30m. A.M., when a strong vibratory and distinctly

visible rocking motion was communicated to the surface, which threw down the entire town of Praya, and several chambers and houses of the adjacent villages, and considerably injured the remaining houses of the villages and many elevated public buildings in other parts of the island. The ground then remained in a comparative state of rest until 2h. 40m. A.M. on the 16th, when a violent shock of earthquake did further damage. After this, although the island did not resume a permanently quiescent state until the 26th of June, no further damage appears to have been done.

It was observed with respect to the whole progress of these phenomena, that the motion was greatest at Praya; where a rent has been left in the ground of about an English mile in length, from the edge of the water stretching westward; and that every convulsion was preceded by a loud subterraneous noise, resembling thunder, so exactly varying in intensity according to the severity of the succeeding shocks of earthquake, that the first became the harbinger and guage of the other.

The number of houses thrown down has not been exactly ascertained; but by the well-grounded computation of an eye-witness is believed to be more than eight hundred, in addition to which, several are in so dilapidated a state as to require rebuilding, and a greater number are in want of extensive repairs.

The value of the property destroyed, including the public buildings, is thought to amount to about one thousand contos of reis, (180,000/.), of which about half falls on private individuals, most of them of the lower agricultural class, and therefore dependent on extraneous assistance for the reconstruction of their houses.

The Civil Governor of Terceira has on this terrible occasion acted with that promptitude and benevolence, with which he has at all times given his energies to the promotion of whatever object could tend to the benefit of the people under his government.

The great force of the convulsions was felt at Praya, being diminished in a sensible degree by every league of additional distance from the eastward. In this direction those subterraneous explosions were heard which attended the shocks of the earthquake, and which equally with these decreased in intensity in proportion with the distance to westward.

The centre must therefore be placed to the eastward of Terceira.

The less severe shocks did not extend beyond the Island of Terceira, others were experienced of apparently equal force at St. George and Graciosa, and only that which destroyed Praya was felt, (but not severely,) at the capitals of Pico and St. Michael. At Fayal and at the eastern enl of St Michael, no motion was perceived, so far as I have been able to ascertain.

If the shocks felt at about the hour of 3h. 30m. on the morning of the 15th, in the several Islands be divided into four degrees of intensity it will be found that each interval contains a distance of about seventeen miles; the eastern end of Terceira being on the first degree or seventeen miles from the centre; the western end being thirty-four miles, Graciosa and St. George fifty-one miles, and the capitals of Pico and St. Michael sixty-eight miles, the latter place appearing to be equidistant from the centre of the earthquake as experiencing shocks of equal degrees of diminished form.

In former years mentioned by Buffon in his second volume of Natural History (in the authority of official communications) submarine explosions have taken place between St. Michael and Terceira, which were succeeded by the appearance of newly raised volcanic islands above the surface. On these occasions earthquakes were felt on both islands, most severely in that one to which the eruption was nearest. In 1811 the volcanic Islet* ejected near St. Michael, and discovered by the officers of H.M.S. Sabrina, came attended by great convulsions on that Island which were not felt at Terceira, and the force of which was considerably diminished at a distance of fifty miles from the then ascertained centre. It is therefore probable that the origin of the earthquake of last June was a submarine volcanic eruption, and that its position or centre was about seventeen miles due east from the eastern end of Terceira.

This hypothesis may not be without some practical utility. The greater number of seventeen earthquakes which are on record as having taken place in the Azores, have been accompanied by the appearance of volcanic islands over their centres: these islands have by the erosion of the sea gradually disappeared, but during this process have been highly dangerous to ships sailing in their direction. For some time, therefore, after submersion, it must have been necessary for the commanders of such ships, to observe great caution in passing by the Azores, that part of the sea in which the eruption had taken place. A similar caution would be necessary now. It is by no means a great stretch of hypothesis to suppose, that the late earthquake, has, like former ones, been accompanied by the ejection of submarine volcanic matter, which may have been thrown up within a short distance of the surface; so that, in fact, that in that part of the sea where there was previously 200 fathoms of water, there may at this moment exist a most dangerous shoal.

As in navigation the extreme of safety should be always chosen, the commanders of all vessels approaching Terceira would do well to keep a good look out, and to be prepared for indications of shoal water at from fifteen to twenty miles to the eastward of it.

(Signed)

British Consulate, St. Michael, July 6th, 1841.

T. C. HUNT.

ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION.

[We have read with much interest the recent account of Capt. Ross's proceed ings, and we admire the resolution and fortitude with which he encountered and overcame the formidable dangers and difficulties which opposed his progress, and which had, apparently, completely stopped both the French and the Americn ships. Great and glorious as have been the military achievements of the British Navy, they will not be looked upon by posterity with more admiration than the extensive discoveries which have distinguished it in the present age-Science and civilization, and British power, have been promoted as effectually, and as permanently by the discoveries of Cook, and

This is not the only instance of volcanic eruptions throwing up islets near the Azores, but appears to be the most recent one.-ED.

ENLARGED SERIES.—NO. 9.-VOL. FOR 1841.

4 M

Parry, and Ross, and many others, as by the heroic deeds of Howe, and St. Vincent, and Nelson, and their glorious companions. The Admiralty have always most liberally and most patriotically encouraged those voyages of discovery; and in so doing they have consulted the honor of the nation, and honor is the most valuable of all national possessions.]

THE Erebus and Terror discovery ships sailed from England about eighteen months ago, under the command of Capt. James Clark Ross, and Com. Crozier, their main and ostensible object being to ascertain the true position of the South Magnetic Pole, and the exploration of the Antarctic Regions*, of which a very imperfect knowledge has hitherto been obtained; but a series of magnetic observations were also directed to be made at different stations on their route, and the first of which being at Madeira, they put in there and stopped several days. Thence they proceeded to St. Helena and the Cape of Good Hope, at which places they fitted up observatories, and left officers of sufficient scientific acquirements to superintend them.

Kerguelen Island was the next spot they visited, where, and at Sabrina, further observations on the magnet were made, and they arrived safe at Hobarton, Van Diemen Land, about the middle of last August. There Capt. Ross met his old friend Sir John Franklin, the Governor, from whom he received every possible attention and assistance, and there also having erected and fitted up an observatory, they proceeded on their voyage about the 26th of October, that being the date of their last letters, at which time they were on the eve of their departure.

Extract of a letter from Captain Ross of H.M.S. Erebus, dated at Hobarton, Van Diemen Land, 7th April, 1841.

"Under all circumstances, it appeared to me that, it would conduce more to the advancement of that branch of science, for which this expedition has been more specially sent forth, as well as for the extension of our geographical knowledge of the Antarctic Regions, to endeavour to penetrate to the southward, on about the 170th degree of east longitude by which the isodynamic oval, and the point exactly between the two foci of greater magnetic intensity might be passed over and determined, and directly between the tracks of the Russian navigator, Bellingshausen, and our own Capt. James Cook, and after entering the Antarctic circle, to steer south-westerly towards the Pole, rather than attempt to approach it directly from the north on the unsuccessful footsteps of my predecessors.

Accordingly on leaving Auckland Islands on the 12th of December, we proceeded to the southward, touching for a few days at Campbell Island, for magnetic purposes, and after passing amongst many icebergs to the southward of 63° latitude, we made the pack-edge, and entered the Antarctic circle on the 1st of January, 1841.

"This pack presented none of those formidable characters which I had been led to expect from the accounts of the Americans and French; but

* See the Map accompanying this Number.