and especialli/ in Scotland. 95 



the duration of the noise was shorter, and I felt no shock. 

 The concussion of the first appeared to me to resemble more 

 the slight liu'ch of a ship under way, struck by a wave and 

 righting immediately again, than any other motion. As far 

 as I can judge from the situation of this house (at the imme- 

 diate base of one of the Ochils) and the quarter of it whence 

 the sound and concussion came from, I should say that they 

 both came from N.NW., and went in the opposite direction 

 across the room where I was sitting ; I was placed in rather 

 a favourable situation for ascertaining this, as I was reading at 

 the time, with my arms leaning upon the table, and both it 

 and the chair upon which I was sitting were thrown first to 

 one side and then to the other, or, to speak more correctly, 

 first towards the S.SE. and then back to where they had been ; 

 the noise was very loud. It seemed to me to be very like what 

 would have been occasioned by some one over head dragging 

 some heavy piece of furniture along the floor from one side of 

 the room to the other, the sound gradually increasing and 

 diminishing as it came towards or receded from the position 

 where I was. The weather on the day of the shock, and also 

 the one preceding it, was uncommonly calm, very foggy to- 

 wards the evening, and the air at that time felt much warmer 

 than__ the degree of heat indicated by the thermometer would 

 have led one to expect, and I thought (but it may have been 

 fancy) that there was a peculiar odour perceptible. In the 

 year 1824, when I was at Lisbon, I perfectly recollect having 

 remarked the same thing, though, from the difference of lati- 

 tude, the heat and the closeness of the air was much more 

 oppressive ; and I remember Avell that the inhabitants of that 

 city were much alarmed at the appearance of the weather, 

 the same phenomena having, they said, been observed imme- 

 diately before the tremendous earthquake in 3755." 



In a subsequent letter, Mr Walker adds, — '' I did not per- 

 ceive any leaning of the house to the N.NW., after recover- 

 ing the perpendicular, — though I have no doubt it must have 

 done so, as your explanation appears to me quite consistent in 

 other respects with what I felt at the time. I was not sensi- 

 ble of the house being lifted up. It appeared to me, as if it 

 had been struck by something which caused it to heel sud- 



