CATASTROPHE AT HARTELEY PARK. 219 



stood a cottage by the side of a lane; and two hundred yards 

 lower, on the other side of the lane, was a farm-house, 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 kitchens 

 began to heave and part ; and that the walls seemed to open, 

 and the roofs to crack : but they all agree that no tremour 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 day-light came they were at leisure to contem- 

 plate 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 perpen- 

 dicular, 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 pro- 

 truded 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 further course and terminated this awful commotion. 



The perpendicular height of the precipice, in general, is twenty- 

 three yards ; the length of the lapse, or slip, as seen from the 

 fields below, one hundred and eighty-one; and a partial fall, 

 concealed in the coppice, extends seventy yards more : so that 



