ON NEW ENGLAND EARTHQUAIvES. 3 



March 5, 1642-3, "At seven in the mornino^, it beino^ the Lord's day, there was 



... 1642-3 



a great earthquake. It came with a rumbling noise like the former, but through 

 the Lord's mercy it did no hai*m." ^ Governor Winthrop seems to be the only one of 

 our early histoi'ians who notices this earthquake ; neither Mallet nor Von HofF include it 

 in their catalogues. 



From the town records of Newbury we have the following : 



June \st. " Being this day assembled to treat or consult together about the well ordering of the aflfiiirs of 

 the towne, about one of the clocke in the afternoone, the sunn shining faire, it pleased God suddenly to raise 

 a vehement earthquake, coming with a shrill clap of thunder, issuing, as is supposed, out of the east, which 

 shook the earth and the foundations of the house in a very violent manner to our great amazement and won- 

 der, vvhei'efore taking notice of so great and strange a hand of God's providence, we were desirous of leaving 

 it on record to the view of after ages, to the intent that all might take notice of Almighty God and feare his 

 name." 



1653. 



1658. 



A very slight shock was noticed in 1653 (October 29), but did not attract gen- 

 eral notice, and is not mentioned by Mallet in his catalogue. Five years later 

 occurred what is usually styled in the old histories, " a great earthquake." Mor- 

 ton says,^ " This year there was a very great earthquake in New England," but no 

 account of the day, hour or direction is given ; perhaps it was April 4.^ Von Hoff* 

 enumerates this in his list, but gives no furjiher particulars, referring simply to the Philo- 

 sophical Transactions as his authority ; Mallet does the same.® The same obscurity is over 

 the "great" eai'thquake of January 31, 1660, which is referred to in Professor 

 Williams's paper already quoted. 



January 26, 1662, three violent shocks were felt in New England ; chimneys 

 were thrown down. November 6, another in the same place. 



Fehruary 5, N. S. Morton tells us that " at the shutting in of the evening, 

 there was a very great earthquake in New England, and the same night another, 

 although something less than the former, and again on the seventh of the same month 

 there was another about nine of the clock in the morning."^ This earthquake was 

 severer in Canada than in the plantations of Massachusetts Bay, and Charlevoix assures us 

 that trees were uprooted, chasms opened, and the course of rivers changed.^ Clavigero, 

 in his " History of Mexico," ^ declares that it overwhelmed a chain of mountains of free- 

 stone more than two hundred miles long, and changed that large tract into a plain ; and 

 this has a singular confirmation in the "Journal des Scjavans,"® where, in a review of the 

 life of the celebrated Mary of the Incarnation, Superior of the Ursulines at Quebec, Avrit- 

 ten by her son, is the following passage : 



" Ce trembleraent agita plus de quatrecent lieues de pais. Tadoussac, Quebec, Sillery, les trois Rivieres, 

 Montreal, les Hiroquois, I'Acadie, et la Nouvelle Holland en ressentirent les secousses * * *. Les eflets en 

 furent si terrible et si prodigieux, qu'on auroit de la peine a les lire meme dans ce Livre et beaucoup plus a 

 les croire, s'ils n'etoient arrivez de nos jours, et s'ils n'avoient pour temoins une infinite d'habitans de tous ces 



' Winthrop's History of New England, vol. 11, edition of ' Charlevoix Histoire de la Nouvelle France. A mountain 



1853, p. \V1. was thrown on to the Isle aux Coudres. See pp. 93, 95, 



2 Memorial, p. 27G. vol. i, English Translation. Paul Dudley gives the year 



' Canadian Naturalist and Geologist, vol. v, p. 3G9. 16G-2. Philosophical Transactions, xxxix, p. 64. See Von 



* Chromic der Erdbeben und Vulcan-ausbriiche, i, p. 307. Hotf Geschiehte der Erdoberfiiiche, 1. 11, p. 542. 



^ Philosophical Transactions, vol. L, p. 9. 8 j ijave been unable to find the passage referred to. 



= Morton's ilemorial, p. 289. » Vol. vil, May, 1678, p. 103. 



