Notice of the Great Explosion at Dover. 339 



These signals were given exactly at the specified time, and 

 when the expected moment arrived, a deep subterranean 

 sound was heard, a violent commotion was seen at the base 

 of the cliff, and the whole mass slid majestically down, form- 

 ing an immense debris at the bottom. The success of the 

 undertaking equalled the most sanguine hopes, and exceeded 

 the expectations of all. It was a splendid triumph of skill, 

 and reflects the highest credit on Mr Hutchinson and Mr 

 Cubitt. 



Sir John Herschel also gives an account of this Explosion in 

 the following letter, addressed to the Editor of the Athenaeum : — 



Having witnessed the great explosion at Dover, on Thursday the 26th, 

 from the summit of the clifF next adjoining it to the southward, and from 

 the nearest point to which any access was permitted, I would gladly 

 place on record^ in your valuable journal^ some features of its magnifi- 

 cent operation, which struck me at the time as extremely remarkable, 

 and which have not, I think;, been adequately placed before the public in 

 any account that I have seen. These features are, the singular and al- 

 most total absence of all those tumultuous and noisy manifestations of 

 power which might naturally be expected to accompany the explosion of 

 so enormous a quantity (19,000 lb.) of gunpowder, and which formed, I 

 have no doubt, the chief attraction of many who came from great distances 

 to witness it, — viz. noise, smoke, earthquake, and fragments hurled to vast 

 distances through the air. 



Of the noise accompanying the immediate explosion, I can only de- 

 scribe it as a low murmur, lasting hardly more than half a second, and so 

 faint, that had a companion at my elbow been speaking in an ordinary 

 tone of voice, I doubt not it would have passed unheeded. Nor was the 

 fall of the cliff (nearly 400 feet in height, and of which no less than 

 400,000 cubic yards were, within an interval of time hardly exceeding ten 

 seconds, distributed over the beach, on an area of 18 acres, covered to an 

 average depth of 14 feet, and in many parts from 30 to 60) accompanied 

 with any considerable noise, certainly with none which attracted my own 

 attention, or that of several others similarly stationed, with whom I after- 

 wards compared notes. A pretty fresh breeze from the south-west might 

 be regarded as Influential in wafting it away, were it not that the fall took 

 place under the lee of the cliflf on whose edge we were stationed. 



The entire absence of smoke was another and not less remarkable fea- 

 ture of the phenomenon. Much dust, Indeed, curled out at the borders of 

 the vast rolling and undulating mass, which spread itself like a semi-fluid 

 body, thinning out in its progress ; but this subsided Instantly ; and oUriie 

 smoke there was absolutely not a vestige. Every part of the surface was 



