24 ' PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1735. 



to its former sweetness and colour. It was also credibly asserted, that several 

 springs and good watering places were some of them lowered, and others quite 

 sunk and lost by the earthquake. A divine, in a town about 20 miles distant 

 from Boston, said, that immediately after the earthquake, there was such a 

 strong smell of sulphur, that the family could scarcely bear to be in the house 

 for a considerable time that night ; which is confirmed also from other places. 

 Persons of credit also affirm, that just before, or in the time of the earthquake, 

 they perceived flashes of light. A gentleman of probity, from Newbury, a 

 town situate between 30 and 40 miles to the n, n. e. of Boston, writes, that at 

 40 rods distance from his house, there was a fissure of the earth, and near 20 

 cart-loads of fine sand thrown out where the ground brake, and water boiled 

 out like a spring, and mixing with the sand, made a sort of quagmire ; but at 

 the date of his letter, which was the 21st current, the spring was become dry, 

 and the ground closed up again. It is also said, that the ground where this 

 sand is thrown up, and round about it for a considerable distance, is a solid clay 

 for 20 or 30 feet deep, and nothing like sand ever to be found there before; so 

 that the exhalation forced this great quantity of sand through a very deep 

 stratum of clay. 



Of an Extraordinary Effect of Lightning in communicating Magnetism. By 

 Dr. Coohson of JVakefield in Yorkshire. N°437, p. 74. 



A tradesman at Wakefield in Yorkshire, having put up a great number of 

 knives and forks in a large box, some in cases or sheaths, and others not, of 

 different sizes, and of different manufactures, in order to be sent beyond sea ; 

 and having placed the box in the corner of a large room, there happened a 

 sudden storm of thunder, lightning, &c. by which the corner of the room was 

 damaged, the box split, and many of the knives and forks melted, the sheaths 

 being untouched. The owner emptying the box on a counter where some nails 

 lay, the persons who took up the knives, that lay on the nails, observed that 

 the knives took up the nails. On this the whole number was tried, and found 

 to do the same, and that, to such a degree as to take up large nails, packing- 

 needles, and other iron things of considerable weight. Needles or other 

 things placed on a pewter-dish, would follow the knife or fork, though held 

 under the dish, and would move along as the knife or fork was moved ; with 

 several other odd appearances. Also, though the knives be heated red-hot, 

 yet their power is still the same when cold. 



