CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO 



I 



American IN K)o6 I had the honor of election to membership in 

 PMosoph- t ] ie American Philosophical Society, and it was ex- 

 Sodety pected that I should make a special address on April 

 1 8 of that year, during the annual meeting in Phila- 

 delphia. I was, however, obliged to go to New York 

 about a month before; while, therefore, I greatly 

 regretted disappointing my friends, I felt that to 

 remain away from the University two weeks longer 

 to deliver an address would not be wise. Finally it 

 was arranged that a friend, Professor Edwin G. Conk- 

 lin of Princeton, should read" The Human Harvest" 1 

 in my stead. 



At thirteen minutes after five on the morning of 

 the 1 8th, the very day on which I should have been 

 due in Philadelphia, we were all awakened by several 

 tremendous jolts, after which the house was shaken 

 with great violence as a rat might be shaken by a dog, 

 and objects began to fly through the air. I managed 

 somehow to get to Eric's room, grab him up, and start 

 to descend the front stairs. But they jumped about 

 in the most violent fashion, so that it was by no 

 means easy either to stand up or to go down. Yet 

 when I did reach the outside, everything was per- 

 fectly still. In less than a minute the solid earth be- 

 tween us and the mountains had been torn open to a 

 depth of no one knows how many miles, and then 

 clapped together again as if nothing had happened ! 

 The linnets, who get up early, had already resumed 



1 See Vol. I, Chapter xxiv, pages 618-620. 



C 168 ] 



