SHAM EARTHQUAKES. 



said to be seized with a violent paroxysm. Explosions are 

 heard, and large discharges of mud, and even flame, are said 

 to appear. Some seventeen years ago (according to Messrs. 

 Wall and Sawkins) such an explosion was heard six miles 

 off; and next morning the .surface was found quite altered, 

 and trees had disappeared, or been thrown down. But^ as 

 they wisely say the reports of the inhabitants must be 

 received with extreme caution. In the autumn of last year, 

 some such explosion is said to have taken place at the Cedros 

 Salse, a place so remote, unfortunately, that I could not visit 

 it. The N'egros and Coolies, the story goes, came running to 

 the overseer at the noise, assuring him that something terrible 

 had happened ; and when he, in defiance of their fears, went 

 off to the Salse, he found that many tons of mud I was told 

 thousands had been thrown out. How true this may be, I 

 cannot say. But Messrs. Wall and Sawkins saw with their 

 own eyes, in 1856, about two miles from this Cedros Salse, 

 the results of an explosion which had happened only two 

 months before, and of which they give a drawing. A surface 

 two hundred feet round had been upheaved fifteen feet, 

 throwing the trees in every direction; and the sham earth- 

 quake had shaken the ground for two hundred or three 

 hundred vards round, till the natives fancied that their 

 huts were going to fall. 



Tliere is a third Salse near Poole river, on the Upper 



