248 GILBERT WHITE OF SELBORNE 1774 



event is full of large chasms and cracks, some two feet wide : 

 the meadow land has very few of these cracks in it, but 

 seems to be pushed forward ; and is filled with large swellings 

 of the turf very much resembling waves: in some places 

 where the ground met with any thing that resisted, it rose 

 up many feet above its former surface. 



In one place four or five trees are driven all together in a 

 huddle. One tree is entirely beat down. 



It is supposed eighty or an hundred acres of ground are 

 damaged by this accident. 



There has been a great concourse of people to see this 

 Event. It is computed that a Sunday or two after it 

 happened there were pretty near a thousand from different 

 parts of the country. One of the persons to whom the cottage 

 belonged has lately been about with a petition in order to 

 attempt to rebuild it. Hoping that this acQount of mine 

 will give you some idea of this wonderful accident; with 

 duty to my uncle and aunt and love to my cousins, I remain 



Your affectionate cousin, 



John White. 



To the same from Gilbert White (on the same sheet). 



April 6th, 1774. 



Dear Sam. — Molly White* has left school, and is now, 

 I believe, in London; towards the end of this month her 

 father brings her down to this place, intending to put her 

 for a while under the care of Mrs. Etty. Poor farmer 

 Berriman has been for some weeks in St. Bartholomew's 

 hospital for a terrible disorder, which he concluded to be 

 a stone in his bladder; but on Monday last he was re- 



* Mary, the only daughter of Thomas White, now 15 years of age. She 

 used often to stay at Selborne, and was the ' ' little girl " mentioned in 

 *The Natural History of Selborne,' Letter LIX. to Barriugton, as re- 

 marking that the rooks when flying round and cawing at dusk were 

 "saying their prayers," as her brother Thomas notes in his copy of his 

 uncle's book. 



