139 



the sounds they heard, and its intensity — it does not appear to have 

 been more severe in this particular locality than in any other from 

 which we have accomits. 



Some persons assert they heard a rumbUng sound ; others that it was 

 a very loud noise which awoke them, and made them feel quite bewil 

 dered ; that some one was walking heavily across the room ; that the 

 sensation was such as a large dog would produce if he were beneath a 

 bed, and forcibly lifting it up. One gentleman describes the towels 

 hanging up in his room to have oscillated so much as to attract his 

 attention. At Birkenhead a child's rocking horse was set in motion. 

 At one of the graving docks, some of the shores against a vessel under 

 repair were shaken down. A policeman leaning against one ol the huts 

 near the docks says it shook so much that he thought it would have 

 fallen into the water. Another heard a loud noise, and saw a flock of 

 small birds, which had been sheltering under the roof of one of the dock 

 sheds, fly out in a state of great terror ; two of them struck against one 

 of the pilbu^, and fell dead. 



In Dublin a sttick of chimneys fell down. A man, in getting over 

 the wall of Trinity College, felt the shock, and feared the rails on the 

 top were giving way ; when he dropped on the ground the motion had 

 ceased ; it did not last more than slk seconds ; there were four distinct 

 shocks, at an interval of about a second and a half ; the direction was 

 N.E. and S.W. A companion, who was on the opposite side of the 

 wall, standing on soft ground, did not feel it at all. No sound whatever 

 was heard. In Molesworth-sti'eet, Dublin, a grass-plot is said to have 

 sunk down, leaving a deep pit. 



At Preston some houses in course of erection were so much shaken 

 that they fell down the same day. At Shrewsbury some large cheeses 

 rolled off the shelves on which they were placed. The bells in the 

 church vibrated ; and in the County Graol the idea prevailed that the 

 prisoners were attempting an escape. A man, going to his work, felt 

 the ground tremble so much that he thought he should have fallen. 

 At Chirk the ground is said to have rocked violently for about thirty 

 seconds. At Bangor, great tremor and loud noises. Thus there 

 appears a general concurrence in the phenomena, with the exception of 

 the time it lasted and the noise, which only a few appear to have 

 noticed. 



In some houses, from the nature of their construction, it has 

 probably been felt more sensibly than in others, and to have lasted 

 longer ; and with regard to the noise, the evidence leads to the 

 inference that the shaking of windows and doors, heard at the moment 

 of waking from sleep, was the only sound made. 



