374 Mr D. Milne on Earthquake-Shocks felt in Great Britain^ 



flat of the house, like that caused by carriages. In the attic 

 storey, the noise was much louder, and caused two maid-ser- 

 vants there, to run down stairs to learn the cause of it. At 

 the porter's lodge, the gardener and his wife, who were in 

 bed, were alarmed by the noise, and by the motion of the bed. 

 He described the sound as like distant thunder. The noise 

 travelled from East to West. 



Mr Charles Forbes (brother of Professor Forbes), who was 

 at the time three miles south-west of Glasgow, wrote to his 

 brother that he felt the shock at 10 o'clock. " I felt the 

 room all tremble, and particularly the timbers below my feet. 

 The lamp shook, and the glasses rattled. I Cannot say whe- 

 ther there was noise accompanying it or not, for the shaken 

 house produced a sound. It was as if there had been a very 

 lieavy weight knocked five times (I would say) very rapidly 

 on the garret-floor above me, and with sufficient power to 

 shake the whole house. The iron-bars of the windows rattled 

 three or four times." Mr Forbes' house is built on the dilu- 

 vial clay of the Clyde. 



At Glenmallon, near Finnart, on Loch-Long, Dumbarton- 

 shire, and about 30 miles SW. of Comrie, Sheriff Colqu- 

 houn writes that the shock was felt by him at 10^^ 10' p. m. " I 

 was engaged in the perusal of a book which interested me 

 very much, when suddenly I heard a singular, loud, hollow 

 rumbling noise, resembling nothing I had ever before experi- 

 enced, followed, almost instantaneously, by a rapid undulatory 

 motion of the floor beneath me, and that again by a violent con- 

 cussion of the walls of the house, and rattling of the windows. 

 I thought, indeed, at the moment, that the house was about to 

 tumble down about my ears. The whole of these phenomena 

 occurred in the course of two or three seconds of time, and 

 immediately afterwards every thing became perfectly quiet as 

 before. My house fronts nearly S W. ; and it appeared to me 

 that the shock approached from behind, i. e. from the NE., 

 passing towards the loch, and probably into the opposite lands 

 of Argyleshire. The rumbling sound already noticed, which 

 was perceived immediately previous to the undulation and 

 concussion, was of a very peculiar nature, and caused a mo- 

 mentary, confused, uneasy sensation, which I can only com- 



