364 Mr D. Milne on Earthquake-Shocks felt in Great Britain, 



applicable to the three last years, which will now be given 

 chronologically. 



23d March 1840, at night. — Ammerapoora, almost destroy- 

 ed by an earthquake. The shock lasted 2' or 3', and killed 

 about 300 persons. The cities of Ava and Tarquin are also 

 said to have been destroyed by an earthquake, with many 

 neighbouring villages. 



20th June 1840 (old style.) — Mount Ararat convulsed by a 

 series of earthquakes, which " occurred at intervals, till the 

 28th July, They afterwards diminished in force, but they 

 did not entirely cease in the district of Sharar, until the 1st 

 September ; and though very feeble towards the close of that 

 period, they were still accompanied by a slight subterranean 

 noise." The severest shock was on the 20th June ; and it 

 was such as to crack the walls, in a number of towns and 

 villages. " The shocks which occurred between the 21st and 

 28th June, overthrew the buildings which the first earthquake 

 had shaken. The heaviest shocks afterwards observed, were 

 on the 14th July, at 3 a.m., and on the 25th July, at 3 and 10 

 A.M., and 5 p.m. The shock on the 20th June occurred at 

 6^ 45' P.M., and it was such as to change, " in a few moments, 

 the entire aspect of the country in the neighbourhood of 

 Mount Ararat. Repeated but intermittent shocks, which 

 seemed to come from the mountain, gave to the earth a 

 movement resembling waves, which continued for about two 

 minutes. The first four and most formidable shocks were 

 accompanied by a subterranean sound, and have left traces 

 on the summits of hills, and bottoms of valleys, which the 

 eye of the scientific observer will recognise after many ages 

 shall have passed away." 



It was, at the same time observed, that numerous rents or 

 fissures took place — all parallel to the course of the rivers 

 Araxes and Arpatchai, and which ploughed the earth to the 

 distance of a verst from the beds of the rivers ; and in ac- 

 cordance with the movement given to the soil by the shocks, 

 they were seen every moment to open and shut. There also 

 occurred a great number of vertical explosions from the bot- 

 toms of holes, like little craters, which, opening and shutting 

 in the same way as fissures, spouted out torrents of water, 



