ON THE FACTS OF EARTHQUAKE PHENOMENA. 17 
An earthquake hath not properly an end, yet its chief ends are sickness, 
inundation and sterility. Cap. 4. An examination of how earthquakes differ 
and agree in form and second causes, and in regard to aspects of the planets. 
The ten corollaries are— 
1. Whether it be true, as Pliny affirms, that France and Egypt are sel- 
dom shaken, by reason of the heat and cold, &e. 
2. Why rivers decrease by earthquakes. 
3. Why those places lying on or encompassed by sea and rivers are ob- 
noxious to earthquakes. 
4. What credit may be given to Plato of the island Atlantis drowned by 
an earthquake. 
5. Whether exterior wind entering the earth from above be able to move it. 
6. Whether subterraneous exhalations are generated by the sun’s beams. 
7. Whether some more solemn times of earthquakes are to be appointed 
for any certain reason. In this he discusses Aristotle’s opinion of the 
Equinoxes, and quotes ‘ Agricola de Metal.’ p. 29, against him. 
8. Why birds are frightened by an earthquake. 
9: Whether vaults in houses are safest from earthquakes. 
10. If the late earthquake be so ended that the same countries through 
’ which it went are secure from its iteration. He decides in the negative, 
_ giving a long list of authorities for earthquakes occurring repeatedly in 
_» the same places, with short intervals and continuing for long periods. 
In the year 1693, John Flamsteed published a letter, in which, after de- 
ling with a sort of method, some of the facts observed, lhe proposes a 
ysical theory of earthquakes. His views, however, are abundantly vague 
d obscure ; he supposes some ztherial explosive matter to exist in ‘the 
nosphere, by the occasional firing of which, the shoek is given to buildings, 
ps, &c. Nothing but the name of the illustrious author would make this 
mphlet deserve notice. 
_ There is a curious book by Hottinger (Hittingeri Dissertationes de Terra 
Motu), partly scientific, partly theological. The title of one dissertation 
e fourth) will give an idea of the book :— 
“Unde Terre motus immittantur, sintne fortuna pure naturales an θεή- 
Ot.” 
᾿ Amontons (Mém. Acad. des Sciences, 1703) endeavoured to prove that 
atmospheric air might be expanded by heat to a sufficient degree of pressure, 
en confined under the earth, to produce volcanic effects, and those of 
tthquakes. Stukeley’s arguments, against this and all other views, that 
me the direct expansion of elastic fluids as the immediate cause of earth- 
lakes, derived from a consideration of the vast areas shaken at once by the 
, are worthy of perusal, though not free from error, and intended to 
ain his own views of their electrical origin only. 
hat electricity in some unknown undescribed and incomprehensible way 
the direct cause of earthquakes, was specially pleaded for by Stukeley, 
al, Beccaria, Priestley and several others, whose imaginations, filled 
the power and grandeur of the electrical phenomena, which their expe- 
iments perpetually brought before them, and adapting in a loose and con- 
used way some of the electrical phenomena that are constantly observed to 
sompany the secondary effects of great earthquakes, referred the whole to 
agency of their favourite force, and were satisfied. 
‘Their precise works and words need not be quoted. 
The Rev. John Mitchell, Fellow of Queen’s College, Cambridge, published 
per on earthquakes, in the 51st volume of the Philosophical Transactions, 
1860: which, up to a very recent date, was by far the most important and 
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