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140] ANNUAL REGISTER 
a row of many pillars of different shapes, such as pentagons, octagons, &c. they are about 55 feet high, and near five feet in diameter, supporting a solid rock of a mile in length, and about 60 feet above the pillars. There is a cave in this island, which the natives call the cave of Fingal; its length is 371 feet, about 115 feet in height, and 51 feet wide; the whole sides are solid rock, and the bottom is covered with water 12 feet deep. The Giant's Causeway in Ireland, or Stonehenge in England, are but trifles when compared to this island. 
His majesty was pleased to appoint Edward Bayntun, Esq; his consul-general at Tripoli, in the room of Edward Barker, Esq; deceased. 
22d. The rock known by the name of the Needle, o Lot's Wife, more than 120 feet west end of the Isle of Wight, was overset, and totally disappeared. It has stood ever since the first discovery of the island, as a signal for mariners. 
A most dreadful hurricane having done infinite damage in the West-India islands, the following are some of the particulars. 

From the St. Cristopher's Gazette, Sept. 2. 
"We inserted in our last, the account of a hard gale of wind from S. W. with some accidents that attended the same, which, to this island's inexpressible grief, were no more than a prelude of our destruction: for on Monday last, the 31st of August, at the dawn of day, our angry hemisphere predicted violence from the N. E. which by degrees broke forth upon us with such rage, not to be paralleled in memory by the oldest man living, in devastation on the sugar-works and plantations in general, and in its course nothing escaped its fury; the vessels of all denominations for safety put to sea, and by twelve t noon we were in hopes, that the all-gracious providence had finished this fatal catastrophe, but to our mortal sorrow, we were disappointed; for about that time the wind shifted to S. W. and S. which brought on such an incessant horrible scene of destruction, till eight o'clock in the evening, that is beyond the power of man to relate; nothing less threatened us than a total annihilation of the island; and those vessels that in the morning went in search of safety, and were not foundered, returned, and were driven on shore in several parts of the island, and scarce a house, sugar-mill, tree, or plant, in this town, Sandy-Point, Old Road, or Island, but what was blown down, or very much damaged; the loss sustained by the planters, house owners, and inhabitants, is inestimable; the loss of lives is, as we hear, considerable; the only names as yet come to our knowledge, are Richard Mathews, Esq; Mrs. Thomas, relict of Mr. Thomas, silversmith, and a great number dangerously wounded. 
The same hurricane has done incredible damage to the Danish island of St. Croix, and the Dutch settlement of Eustatia; also to the islands of St. Martin and Turtola." 

The following authenticated account has since been received. 
St. Eustatia, 400 houses on the higher grounds destroyed, or rendered 

For the YEAR 1772. [141 
dered untenantable; many houses carried ten or twelve yards, and overs quite into the sea. Plantation houses all down except two; and the canes in the ground all twisted up; the Dutch church blown into the sea. 
At Saba, 180 houses blown down, and the cattle carried away from their stakes. 
At St. Martin's, scarce a house standing, all their plantations destroyed. 
St. Croix, every house almost at Christianstadt, and all the plantations and negro-houses levelled; only three houses left standing at Frederickstadt, and numbers of people killed. A letter from thence says, "Words are wanting to describe the horrors of the night; the dreadful roar of raging winds and waves; the crash of falling buildings; the cries and groans of the sufferers, of the dying and wounded, together with a tenfold darkness, made visible only by the meteors, which, like balls of fire, skimmed along the hills, formed a most terrible and most distressful scene." 
At St. Kit's, almost all the estates are destroyed, there being scarce a mill or boiling-house left standing. 
At Antigua, all the men of war, except the admiral, are ashore, and several ships at St. John's foundered at their anchors; and the towns on the island, and the estates thereon, in as bad a situation as at St. Kit's. 
At Dominica, eighteen vessels are drove ashore and lost. Montferrat and Nevis have scarcely a house left standing. 
By accounts from Antigua, we hear, that the house of Major Douglas, near St. John's, was blown don in the late hurricane, by which accident two white servants, and four negroes, were killed on the spot, and Mr. Cox, and two young ladies who were there on a visit, wounded so terribly that their lives are despaired of. 
A letter from St. Kit's, dated the 5th of September, says, the general loss sustained by the violent hurricane there, cannot, on the most moderate calculation, be computed at less than 500,0001. 

The following extract of a Letter from Santa Cruz, contains still more extraordinary particulars. 
"A most violent hurricane, the like to which has neve been known before, began to rush most terribly, accompanied with most shocking whirlwinds and storms of rain; so that we really believed there three elements had determined to swallow us up. The sea began to roar so much, that the noise was heard above a hundred miles off. The wind raged in such a manner, that every one thought it was the last day. The sea swelled up 70 feet above the usual height, tore all the houses near the shore even to the foundations; beams, planks, and stones flew through the air like feathers. The wall round the king's store-house, which was above a yard thick, was tumbled down to the ground, and hurled a hundred yards off. The fruit which was in the open fields, was totally ruined, as well from the hurricane as from the heavy water-floods. The plantations are ruined in such a manner, that is impossible for them to be cultivated next year, as all the trees were rooted up, which occasioned holes of four, five, and six feet in the ground. Several heavy stones were thrown down from the mountains. The sea swelled in such