The ferrade is the marking the bulls with a hot iron in order to recognize them when they are turned out to feed; it requires address and strength, but is not dangerous, unless the animal is foolishly provoked; they catch the bull and throw him down, when the iron is applied; he then rises and bounds away, glad to be released. But the "courses" are really dangerous, because the bulls are generally fierce, and the people tease them, notwithstanding the many examples they have seen of the folly and danger of such proceedings; for if the bull once discovers his tormentor, and is fully enraged, the man is doomed-nothing but more agility than is usually possessed can save him; the furious animal rushes after him, and if he is not killed on the spot he dies of his wounds shortly after. It rarely happens that the bull-races, for they cannot be called bull-fights, pass over without some fatal accident.

I have also seen the arena in all the splendour of military pomp, when the colours were distributed to the national guard of Nismes and of the neighbouring villages in 1830; and on one or two other interesting occasions. The arena, properly so called, will hold many thousand men; and nothing can be more picturesque than the effect of the spectators, seated as they are, some upon the gradins, others upon the irregular masses of ruin which compose one side of this Amphitheatre.

But it is by moonlight that you should view the Arénes; such moonlight as we have at Nismes, which throws the masses so finely into shade, and lights up the spaces, and shines through the arcades with such silvery radiance. Once in particular: I had been spending the day with a friend, a gentleman called on her, and when I came away offered to accompany me home; as the fineness of the evening was remarkable even at Nimes, he proposed our walking round the town, rather than through it, by which means I saw the Amphitheatre in all its beauty-there it stood; so calm, so noble, and looking so entire, as viewed from one particular spot, that no one would have imagined that two thousand years had rolled over it. Ah! those Romans knew how to build.

In describing this noble structure technically, I shall borrow Monsieur Auguste Pelet's own words; by which means I shall ensure to my readers an accurate account of a monument which rivals the Colosseum in beauty, though not in size.

The amphitheatre at Nismes is the best preserved of all those which still remain. A model of it has been executed in Cork by M. Pelet, in its primitive state, in order to give a complete idea of those admirable monuments with which the Roman grandeur enriched even the most distant provinces of the empire.

The precise epoch of its construction is unknown; an inscription found in clearing away the rubbish has caused it to be attributed to the reign of Titus or Domitian; but it is more probable that we owe this monument to Antoninus, who endowed the empire with so many public edifices, and who doubtless forgot not the city whence he derived his origin..

The use to which the Romans destined their amphitheatres, was

to amuse the people by gladiatorial combats, and combats of wild beasts; by chases and nautical games. That at Nismes was adapted to all those purposes.

The amphitheatre at Nismes is an ellipsis, of which the larger axis taken from without is of 133m. 38c., and the smaller axis of 101m. 40c. The grand diameter of the arena, properly so called, is of 69m. 14c., and the small diameter of 38m. 34c.

The external façade of this monument has two stories, each pierced with sixty porticos; those of the first separated by pilasters, those of the second by columns of the Tuscan order. The attic which crowns the edifice bears projecting brackets, which held the beams supporting the velarium, an immense awning which was stretched over the arena, and which M. Pelet has executed in part, in order to give an idea of the general system of this enormous shade.* The four porticos of the ground floor, which are situated upon the axes of the ellipsis, were the only ones which communicated with the interior of the arena. The total height of the façade was of 12m. 32c., of which 10m. 08c. for the first tier, 9m. 88c. for the second, and 1m. 86c. for the attic. The arches have an opening 3m. 80c. wide; those which are on the large axis, and that to the north on the small axis, are 4m. 45c. in width. The latter, which was the principal entry, was decorated with a pediment supported by bull's heads. The interior was divided into thirty-four gradins or stone seats, and three footstools, rising by degrees from the podium to the attic; these gradins were divided into precincts; the first contained four, reserved for the families of the principal persons of the colony: and there, upon the smaller axis, was placed the imperial seat, and also that appointed to the vestals. The remainder of this precinct was divided into fourteen scats or lodges, having each their entrance in the interior gallery of the ground story. This first precinct was separated from the second by a wall lined with flag-stones, like that of the innermost enclosure, and crowned like that with a cornice; the ten gradins which composed it were destined for the order of knights, or equestrians, who arrived at their places by forty-eight vomitories (door-ways) of which sixteen led to the interior gallery of the ground floor, and thirty-two to the middle gallery. Next to each vomitory in the interior of the amphitheatre, the gradin was hewn so as to form two steps, in order to facilitate the circulation on all the tiers of seats; a disposition applied only to the three first precincts, and which had been neglected for the fourth, destined for the slaves.

The third precinct was separated from the second by a footstool forming a gradin of double the height of the others, and having a

This awning was stretched over to shade the spectators, and those engaged in the games, from the scorching rays of the sun, which would otherwise have been insupportable; now, as the curtain is no longer there, they time their amusements so as to avoid the intensity of the heat.

+ The seats or lodge appointed for the vestals, was opposite to the one occupied by the Cæsars; on all solemn occasions the vestals were present, nor were the games permitted to begin until they made their appearance.

little éymaise. This precinct was designed for the populus, very different from the populace, plebs, for whom was reserved the fourth and last precinct, composed of ten gradins, and separated in the same manner as the preceding. They arrived at the third by thirty vomitories, the entrances to which were in the gallery of the first story; and they arrived at the fourth by an equal number of vomitories, of which the entrances corresponded with the gallery of the second floor, covered over by a semi-circular vaulted roof, which abutted against the outer wall.

The attic rose one metre above the last gradin, and sustained a system of beams, which, combined with those that we have indicated as borne by the brackets of the façade, supported the immense awning which covered the edifice.

In order to satisfy the curiosity of the public on every point, M. Pelet has calculated with great exactitude the number of spectators which might be accommodated within the boundary, whereof every place is indicated, but in the fourth division only, by a notch on the gradin itself, and he has found that the first precinct contained 1,568 places, the second 5,313, the third 6,893, the fourth 8,182; total 21,956. If we add to this number the places which might be occupied on the footsteps of the third and fourth divisions, and on the last gradin of the attic, which would amount to 2,253, we should obtain the number of 24,209 for the quantity of persons which the amphitheatre might contain.

The Visigoths in the eighth century converted it into a fortress, and constructed there some towers, which still existed in 1809, when M. d' Alphonse, then Prefect du Gard, undertook to have the amphitheatre cleared of the houses which encumbered it; this project was put in execution sometime after by M. Villiers du Terrage, who during his administration as Prefect du Gard, obtained the affection of the inhabitants of this deparment, and the gratitude of every friend to the arts. In the year 737, Charles Martel besieged the Saracens in the arena, and after having dislodged them he set fire to the edifice, which still bears the traces of this act of Vandalism, from which it suffered much.-From a MSS. work, entitled, "The Resident in France."

CONVULSION AT DOWLANDS, NEAR LYME-REGIS, DORSET.

BY THE REV. JAMES RUDGE, D.D., F.R.S.

WITH respect to this phenomenon, I am anxious to record my opinion in the pages of The Churchman. I have minutely examined every part of it. Different views and sentiments have been entertained as to the causes in which it originated, some contending that it is merely an extensive land-slip occasioned by subterraneous springs, acting upon a loose and friable soil, while others are firmly persuaded, that the primary agent is some convulsion of nature; and what tends to give strength and authority to the latter opinion is the fact that, for eight or nine days previous to the subsidence of the

land, and its precipitation to a depth, in some places, of more than 200 feet, the cottagers, who inhabit the cottages on the slope of the debris of the undercliff, felt a tremulous motion in the earth-the sea presenting an unusual appearance, and making a rumbling noise like that of distant thunder, and such other indications were afforded as are generally supposed to precede and accompany electrical agency and volcanic erruptions. The guide by whom I was attended, and who lived in one of the cottages at the time of the occurrence, gave me the above account; and in order that I might not present an inaccurate representation of his oral testimony, I committed to paper on the spot his statement, and afterwards read it over to him. At the time of the convulsion, two preventive-men, whose names are Spencer and Johns, happened to be walking along the shore, and their impressions on the whole are not dissimilar from those of the cottager: they represent that the beach appeared to be rising and falling beneath them-the sea-cliff tumbling down, and the reek rising out of the sea attended with flashes of fire and a strong smell of sulphur-the noise was like that of distant thunder, and the flashes of fire resembled those of lightning.*

If reliance can be placed on the above statements, they would go a great way in deducing an inference-namely, that the phenomenon was occasioned by electrical agency and subterraneous fires-the noise that was heard, but particularly the smell that was emitted, bearing palpable evidence of the existence and locality of an earthquake, though limited in its extent, and less disastrous in its ravages, than others, of which the accounts must be familiar to the historical recollections of the reader. Waving, however, any decided inference on a subject involved in uncertainty, and incapable therefore of full and satisfactory proof, perhaps the most striking part of this phenomenon is a large, solid rock, upridged on the sands or shingles of the sea to the height of sixty or seventy feet, and the formation of a natural cob, like that at Lyme, and a large basin or volume of water resembling an inland loch, like some of the small ones I have seen in Scotland. The appearance, however, of these has been much changed within these few months, owing to the action of the waves, and the prevalence of boisterous weather with which this part of the coast was visited immediately after the land-slip. Soundings of the bed of the sea have been made to some extent, and the result of frequent examinations has proved, that for nearly a mile from the shore it has undergone considerable change or disruption. The springs in the neighbourhood of the Haven-cliff have of late been much augmented, and one has arisen on the Dairy-of-Haven farm, situated almost on the summit of the table-land between the harbour and the village of Exmouth, and continued to flow during the whole of the dry weather in autumn. Others on the Made-cliff eastward of the harbour are producing a real land-slip. The tenant of Bindon-farm

Since the above was written, the testimony of these men has been published, and their depositions were taken before my friend, Col. Macalister, and another gentleman. The characters of the preventive-men for integrity and sobriety are, I learn, unimpeachable.

(Mr. Chapple) states, that for some weeks after the subsidence, the heat in the great chasm was at times almost intolerable, and several persons can bear testimony to the truth and accuracy of this representation. However all these phenomena are to be explained, and the different opinions or speculations to which they have given rise are to be reconciled, one thing is quite certain-that, in various parts of England and Scotland, slight shocks of earthquake have been experienced within the last year or two; and at no distant period earthquakes have been frequent along the south coast by Brighton and Portsmouth; and the one at Chichester will be fresh in the recollection of the reader.

The Caledonian Mercury, in a late number, contains the record of an earthquake, attended with noise, having been felt at Comrie for several days-viz. on the 8th, 9th, 11th, and 13th of last March. Professor Milne, of Edinburgh, from whom I have received an interesting and important communication on the subject, thus describes their shocks :

They emanated from one central point, situated about two miles N. W. of Comrie. "He states that the natural levels of the ground had been altered, and to the amount of more than two or three degrees. The shocks were transmitted to greater distances in the direction of E. N. E. from Comrie than in any other direction-he attributes these shocks to fractures or ruptures in the earth's crust at a great depth. The vibrations caused by these subterranean ruptures would rise vertically as well as obliquely upwards, and create at some places the sensation of the shock coming directly from below, and at others, of its moving forwards along the surface. A month before the commencement of the earthquakes, and for some time after they were perceived, there had been in Perthshire an almost unprecedented quantity of rain, notwithstanding which it was noted of the Errol, the Airdle, and other streams near Stratherne, that they were not flooded as might have been expected. The circumstance of these earthquakes being in some way connected with the rain was rendered probable by the fact that, in former years, they had been almost always preceded by rainy weather; and it was known that if water percolated to the depth of one mile and a half on to the earth's crust, it would, in consequence of the subterraneous heat, generate steam, which might cause ruptures. The waters might in Perthshire percolate into subterraneous depths by the numerous fissures abounding in it. For a month before the commencement of the earthquakes, the atmospherical pressure was less than it had been for several years, by which any volcanic forces beneath would be enabled to press or push towards the earth's crust with unusual effect, and thus facilitate the percolation of waters to its fissures." There were other phenomena attending these earthquakes, to which Mr. Milne refers, and among others he mentions a peculiar smell or odour similar, probably, to the sulphuric effluvia at the convulsion near Lyme.

The phenomena of earthquakes are but little understood. They may occur with or without any tremulous motion of the earth; and