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hours before, stood a substantial hotel — new built and not yet 

 opened for guests — a street of substantial houses, orchards and 

 gardens, there was nothing but mud and water, floating wreck. 

 Though some notice of what might happen was given by cracks 

 in some of the houses and in the quay that was in course of con- 

 struction, yet the actual fall was so sudden that about thirty 

 persons were either drowned or crushed to death in the ruins. I 

 was staying for a few days at Lucerne, distant about 18 miles, so 

 accompanied by my brother we went over on the afternoon of the 

 6th to see for ourselves the extent of the disaster ; but we were 

 able to see but very little We found the usually quiet town full 

 of an excited crowd, and all the approaches to the scene guarded 

 by the Federal soldiers, who would not allow any person to go 

 near, as it was considered quite unsafe. We were therefore 

 obliged to return to Lucerne with little definite information ; but 

 with a knowledge that rumour had not exaggerated the extent of 

 the disaster. 



The Eev. E. Hill, who visited the spot about two weeks after, 

 when the excitement had calmed down and it was possible to 

 investigate the causes, &c., read a paper at the meeting of the 

 British Association, at Manchester, on the subject. He stated 

 that it had been proved that the first 10 or 12 feet of the soil 

 consisted of alluvial detritus — and below this there was an 

 unknown depth of soft oozy stufi". It would seem that the 

 accumulation of buildings on a soil of this kind had ultimately 

 produced a state of unstable equilibrium, and anything that 

 tended either to increase the superincumbent pressure or remove 

 in ever so slight a degree the support from below would destroy 

 that equilibrium. It is worth notice that similar calamities have 

 happened very near the same spot. In 1435 a similiar subsidence 

 took place accompanied, it is said, by a loss of 160 lives — and 

 again about 100 years since something very similar occured. In 

 both these cases there appears to have been some connection with 

 a sudden reduction of the level of the waters of the lake. It is 



