10 WILLIAil T. BRIGHA]VI 



slight shock was felt m Boston/ but it is only referred to as happening about seventeen 

 years before the great earthquake of 1755. 



December 6, 1741, a small earthquake was felt at Boston, Dedham, Walpole, 

 and other towns aljout eight o'clock in the morning.^ 

 On Sunday, June 13, 1741, at lO'' 35' A.M., a very noisy earthquake took place, al- 

 though the shock was not very great. The day was bright and hot, and the barometer 

 fell slightly (two lines) in the morning. There had been no rain since the twenty-third 

 of May, and the whole month was dry and hot. Much lightning was observed during the 

 latter part of the month. At the time of the earthquake the barometer, as observed by 

 Professor Winthrop, stood at2'J.94.« 



On May 16, lY44, a considerable vibration felt at Quebec, Canada. June 3, a 

 slight shock at Cambridge, Massachusetts. December 23, a small earthquake was 

 felt about Newbury at noon.* 



February 2, 1746, a shock was felt by some at Boston, between nine and ten in 

 the evening. A very remarkable aurora borealis was observed a month later.^ 



The year of the great Lisbon earthquake was long remembered in New Eng- 

 land, and careful accounts were prepared at the time by Professor John Winthrop, 

 of Cambridge, and published both in this country and in England.^ The shock which had 

 destroyed the cit}^ of Lisbon, with so many of her inhabitants, was felt from Iceland on 

 the north to Morocco on the south, from Bohemia to the West Indies. After an interval of 

 only eighteen days, and during this time slight shocks had been felt in Europe, as if the 

 vibration of the earth's crust still continued from the fii'st great impulse. New England 

 and the neighboring parts of America were shaken. On Tuesday, November 18, 1755, at 

 4'' 11' 35",'^ after a perfectly calm night, with the moon, which was near (thirty-six hours) 

 the full, shining brightly, the shock came. Like the other earthquakes of New England, this 

 began with a roaring noise from the northwest, like distant thunder. A man who was on the 

 road at the time, heard the noise and recognized its nature as it grew louder, and in about, 

 a minute he felt the shock, which resembled a long rolling sea ; and the swell was so great 

 that he was obliged to run and catch hold of something to prevent being thrown down. 

 The tops of two trees near him, one twenty-five and the other thirty feet high, waved, he 

 thought, ten feet. This motion was repeated, and then came a smaller one, and it was sup- 

 posed that the shock was passed. " But instantly," Winthrop says, " without a moment's 

 intermission, the shock came on with redoubled noise and violence, though the species of 

 it was altered to a tremor, or quick horizontal vibratory motion, with sudden jerks and 

 wrenches. The bed on which I lay was now tossed from side to side ; the whole house 

 was prodigiously agitated ; the windows rattled, the beams cracked, as if all would pres- 

 ently be shaken to pieces. When this had continued about two minutes it began to abate, 

 and gradually kept decreasing, as if it would soon be over ; however, before it had quite 

 ceased, there was a little revival of the trembling and noise, though no ways comparable 

 to what had been' before, but this presently decreased, till all, by degrees, became stiU 



1 Philosophical Transactions, vol. xlix (pt. i), p. 443. * Philosophical Transactions, vol. i„ (pt. i, 1 757), p. 1, et seq. 



- .SilliMi.m's Journal, vol. XL, p. "204. ' Prof. AVinthrop had regulated both his clock- and watch 



' Philosophical Transactions, vol. L (pt. i), p. 14. the previous noon, and a tall glass tube that he had enclosed 



* Silliuian's Journal, vol. XL. p. 205. in the clock case for safety was tlirown against the pendulum 



^ Loc. cit. at the first shock, stopping the clock. 



