^ gleanings of Hleratnre. July 1 8. 



GLEANINGS OF LITERATURE. 

 . E/ectric symptoms accomf-.anyin^ earthquakes, exemplified in 

 an account of the earthquakes of "Jamaica, anno 1766, ex- 

 tracted f-om a letter from Drjohn Murtin Butt. 



Sir, To the Editor of the Bee. 



'From the nth of June to the present time we have 

 either expected to be buried by earthquakes, or blown 

 away by hurricanes ; bat, thank God, no great mischief 

 has yet been done, although our neighbours of Cuba 

 -have suffered considerably by the former, and we are 

 hourly in dreadful apprehension of hearing that they have 

 had a violent hurricane, from the symptoms observed in 

 our sea and atmosphere. 



" The first earthquake, for we have had no fewer than forty 

 Ihocks, happened a few minutes past midnight of the nth 

 of June, after a long course of intensely hot weather. That 

 evening I had invited a company to sup with me ; but be- 

 fore eight o'clock felt such a trembling of my limbs, with 

 stricture and anxious uneasinefs on my breast, and vertigo, 

 that I was forced to retire from my guests and go to bed. 

 i then felt precisely as I was wont to do under the influ- 

 ence of electricity, which always affects my nerves so sur- 

 prisingly, that, when others are undergoing electrical ftiocks, 

 I decline the experiment, as I do not recover the effect of 

 it for hours. 



" Not knowing the cause of my uneasinefs, and apprehen- 

 ding ipproaching disease, I determined to let blood, and 

 put my feet in warm water, after which I fell into a sweat, 

 and then into a disturbed sleep, out of which I was awake- 

 ned by the violence of a (hock of earthquake. 



