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though naturally events that are taking place around us now 
bring the matter more home to us than those of which we read 
and which belong to bygone times. 
In all ages up to the present time men of science and learning 
have devoted themselves to the study and examination of these 
great and mysterious phenomena, and have furnished us with 
many and interesting theories and explanations; but it would 
appear that we are still very far from arriving at all the strange 
secrets of nature on the question ; and in introducing the subject 
to-day I wish at once to explain that I do not intend to be one of 
those who would “rush in where angels quake to tread,” but that 
my object is to invite a discussion on a matter in which I have 
become greatly interested, and elicit the opinions of those amongst 
us who possess a scientific knowledge, to which I lay no claim. 
In seeking for the causes of these strange disturbances of the 
ground called earthquakes many people appear to me to forget 
the lesson taught us in the fable of the chameleon, and to jump 
to the conclusion that a theory which they have adopted on 
apparently good grounds must be the only one admissible. Now 
I am inclined to agree with the writer in the Cornhill article 
before alluded to, when he says, “There are earthquakes and 
earthquakes.” It does not follow that every shaking of the 
ground must proceed directly from the same cause. Mr. Malet 
would have us believe that nearly all earthquakes are caused by 
subsidence of the ground which has been undermined by the 
gradual action of water; others assert that the cause is entirely 
electrical ; others again consider steam to be the principal agent 
in the matter. While admitting that all these agencies are at 
_ times at work, and holding that one theory does not necessarily 
upset another, I nevertheless am inclined to the belief that in the 
vast majority of cases steam is the actual power that is at work 
and that produces such disastrous upheavals. The subsidences 
pure and simple I hold to be of rare occurrence ; the circumstances. 
connected with most recorded earthquakes, as well as the 
