It must be
also evident, that a very small operation of an earthquake would be
sufficient to render every means of information, in this manner of
mensuration, unsatisfactory or precarious.
Pliny says Italy was distant from Sicily a mile and a half; but we
cannot suppose that this measure was taken any otherwise than by
computation, and such a measure is but little calculated to afford us
the just means of a comparison with the present distance. He also says,
indeed, that Sicily had been once joined with Italy. His words are:
"Quondam Brutio agro cohaerens, mox interfuso mari avulsa.[18]" But all
that we can conclude from this history of Pliny is, that, in all times,
to people considering the appearances of those two approached coasts,
it had seemed probable, that the sea formed a passage between the two
countries which had been once united; in like manner as is still more
immediately perceived, in that smaller disjunction which is made between
the island of Anglesey and the continent of Wales.
[Note 18: Lib. 3. cap. 8.]
The port of Syracuse, with the island which forms the greater and
lesser, and the fountain of Arethusa, the water of which the ancients
divided from the sea with a wall, do not seem to be altered.
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