The Natural History of Selborne 321 



About an hundred yards from the foot of this hanging coppice stood 

 a cottage by the side of a lane ; and two hundred yards lower, on 

 the other side of the lane, was a farmhouse, in which lived a labourer 

 and his family ; and, just by, a stout new barn. The cottage was 

 inhabited by an old woman and her son, and his wife. These people 

 in the evening, which was very dark and tempestuous, observed that 

 the brick floors of their kitchen began to heave and part ; and that 

 the walls seemed to open, and the roofs to crack : but they all agree 

 that no tremor of the ground, indicating an earthquake, was ever 

 felt ; only that the wind continued to make a most tremendous 

 roaring in the woods and hangers. The miserable inhabitants, not 

 daring to go to bed, remained in the utmost solicitude and confusion, 

 expecting every moment to be buried under the ruins of their 

 shattered edifices. When daylight came they were at leisure to 

 contemplate the devastations of the night : they then found that a 

 deep rift, or chasm, had opened under their houses, and torn them, 

 as it were, in two ; and that one end of the barn had suffered in a 

 similar manner ; that a pond near the cottage had undergone a 

 strange reverse, becoming deep at the shallow end, and so vice versa ; 

 that many large oaks were removed out of their perpendicular, some 

 thrown down, and some fallen into the heads of neighbouring trees ; 

 and that a gate was thrust forward, with its hedge, full six feet, so 

 as to require a new track to be made to it. From the foot of the 

 cliff" the general course of the ground, which is pasture, inclines in a 

 moderate descent for half a mile, and is interspersed with some 

 hillocks, which were rifted, in every direction, as well towards the 

 great woody hanger, as from it. In the first pasture the deep clefts 

 began ; and running across the lane, and under the buildings, made 

 such vast shelves that the road was impassable for some time ; and 

 so over to an arable field on the other side, which was strangely torn 

 and disordered. The second pasture field, being more soft and 

 springy, was protruded forward without many fissures in the turf, 

 which was raised in long ridges resembling graves, lying at right 

 angles to the motion. At the bottom of this enclosure the soil and 

 turf rose many feet against the bodies of some oaks that obstructed 

 their farther course, and terminated this awful commotion. 



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