MEMOIRS 



OF THE 



BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



I. Volcanic Manifestations in New England : heing an enumeration of the princi- 

 pal Earthquakes from 1638 to 1869. By William T. Brigham, A.M. 



Read April 7th, 1869. 



j^LTHOUGH no recent or noteworthy manifestation of either seismic or volcanic force 

 has made the present an especially appropriate time to review the records of the past, and 

 collect the scattered and imperfect accounts of such seismic phenomena as have been no- 

 ticed in New England in the comparatively short period covered by the observation of 

 civilized nations, yet the steadily increasing interest in these studies will, perhaps, render 

 useful a compilation of such facts as possess historical authenticity, which may serve as a 

 basis for the observations which must be made in the field. 



M. Alexis Perrey, the distinguished savant of Dijon, has published^ in his series of local 

 catalogues a tolerably complete list of the earthquakes which ai'e said to have taken place 

 in the central and eastern part of North America, but his work is not easily obtained. 

 Professor Williams, also, in the Memoirs of the American Academy,^ has collected much 

 valuable material ; and Professor Mallet's catalogue,^ and many fragmentary scientific and 

 historical papers contain nearly all the rest that is known of the surface indications of 

 that power which has in ages long past done so much to mould the surface of New 

 England. 



Indian tradition gives us nothing of any value, for people in an uncivilized state do not 

 note the paroxysmal changes of Nature, though the weather signs are often carefully 

 observed. The early settlers in New England were men of little leisure, whose whole life 

 was a battle against stubborn nature and sinful man, and the earthquake shock was a 

 slight thing beside the abundant harvest of a cornfield, or the erection of the town stocks. 

 Where the hand of the Lord led them they were willing to go, and where His hand was 

 seen in the tremor of the mighty earth a record was made, but much as the record of 

 some pest, or a great drought. 



1 Annales de la Societe d'Eiimlation des Vosges, t. vii, 2 ' Catalogue of Recorded Earthquakes, from 1606 B. C. to 

 cah. 1850. A. D. 1850. 1853. 



^ Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sci- 

 ences, vol. I, p. 260. 1785. 



MEMOraS DOST. SOC. NAT. HIBT. TOL. U, 1 



