340 Earthquake in Connecticut, &§c. 
they seem to have their centre, rise and origin among us,) as has 
been observed for more than thirty years. I have been informed, 
that in this place, before the English settlements, there were 
great numbers of Indian inhabitants, and that it was a place of 
extraordinary Indian pawaws, or in short, that it was a place 
where the Indians drove a prodigious trade at worshipping the 
devil. Also I was informed, that, many years past, an old Indian 
was asked what was the reason of the noises in this place? To 
which he replied, that the Indian’s God was very angry because 
Hnglishman’s God was come here. 
“ Now whether there be any thing diabolical in these things, 
I know not; but this I know, that God Almighty is to be seen 
and trembled at, in what has been often heard among us. Wheth- 
er it be fire or air distressed in the subterraneous caverns of the 
earth, cannot be known; for there is no eruption, no explosion 
perceptible, but by sounds and tremors, which sometimes are 
very fearful and dreadful. I have myself heard eight or ten 
sounds successively, and imitating small arms, in the space of five 
minutes. I have, I suppose, heard several hundreds of them 
within twenty years; some more, some less terrible. Sometimes 
we have heard them almost every day, and great numbers of 
them in the space of a year.. Oftentimes I have observed them 
to be coming down from the north, imitating slow thunder, until 
the sound came near or right under, and then there seemed to 
be a breaking like the noise of a cannon shot, or severe thunder, 
which shakes the houses and all that isin them. They have in- 
a manner ceased, since the great earthquake. As I remember, 
there have been but two heard since that time, and those but 
moderate.” 
Dr. Trumbull, without giving an exact date, goes on to remark 
in his history : “A worthy gentleman, about six years since, gave 
the following account of them.’*—“ The awful noises, of which 
Mr. Hosmer gave an account, in his historical minutes, and cone 
cerning which you desire farther information, continue to the pre- 
sent time. The effects they produce, are various as the intermedi- 
ate degrees between the roar of a cannon and the noise of a pistol. 
Se ee: teers agp ates placed the MS, of his second volume ccnfiden- 
s ‘i he senior editor of this Journal in the year 1810, the let- 
e been written tten about the beginning of the present 
