ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 141 



ficient intensity to attract the attention of the inhabitants during the hours of 

 daylight. These facts, though few in themselves, are of importance, to disabuse 

 the public mind in relation to the danger to be apprehended from the occurrence 

 of these phenomena. The character which we sustain both at home and abroad, 

 as being in constant danger of being swallowed up by these occurrences, and 

 that our country is but a bed of latent volcanoes ready to burst forth at any 

 moment, spreading devastation over the land, is one of the greatest fallacies that 

 ever obtained possession of the human brain. Our State is as primitive as 

 Massachusetts or New Hampshire, and the dangers that surround us from the 

 sources above mentioned, are equally great as in the States just named. 



"We should remember that when speaking of California as a State, that we 

 include a line of territory equaling that of the seaboard lying between Cape 

 Hatteras on the south and the British Possessions on the north, and including 

 eleven of the seaboard States of the Union ; and when we place our compara- 

 tive estimates on this basis in matters of this character, it will become at once 

 evident that the danger of annihilation from the causes under consideration, are 

 not of that magnitude which at first sight would appear. 



Along the coast of Mexico and Central America, to the south of California 

 from all the records that are obtainable here there appears to have been a much 

 greater exemption from those phenomena than has been usual in former years ; 

 this seems to have been the fact, also, throughout the Pacific, Oceanic, and most 

 of the Continental Islands along the coast of China, while to the north and 

 north-west, beyond the fifty-fifth parallel, both volcanic and earthquake phe- 

 nomena appear to have been greater than usual. This has been observable, for 

 the most part, in the neighborhood of the Aleutian Archipelago, along the 

 north-east coast of Japan, and in the British and Kussian Possessions of North 

 America on the Pacific, and islands of the Ochotsk Sea. 



It would be interesting to know more of the predominance of these phe- 

 nomena in those regions, and such information could be easily obtained from the 

 commanders of the whaling fleet, if the proper measures were adopted to 

 secure it. 



Below will be found some interesting matter upon this subject, which took 

 place during the past year near the Straits of Ourinach. 



The earthquakes which have occurred in this State during 1856, and the 

 period of their occurrence, is as follows : 

 January 2d, lOh. 15m. — This morning, a smart shock of an earthquake was 



felt in San Francisco. The motion of the earth was undulatory, and came 



apparently from the northward. A pendulum indicated a motion of about 



five and a half inches. 

 January 21st, 16h. — Quite a smart shock occurred ; it was quite sharp in the 



south-west part of the city. 

 January 28th, 3h. — At the town of Petaluma, Sonoma County, a shock of an 



earthquake occurred. It was sufficiently heavy to awake persons from their 



sleep. 

 January 29th, Oh. 45m. — A slight shock was felt in San Francisco. It was 



observed also at the Mission Dolores. There were three distinct tremors, with 



