VOL. XLVI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. IIQ 



Deeping-Fen is under water in the winter ; underneath is a perfect bog : now 

 it is very obvious how little favourable such ground is for subterraneous fires. 



In the second earthquake, not only this country was affected again, but like- 

 wise a much larger space of the same sort of fenny ground, rather worse than the 

 former: all Donington-Fen, Deeping-Fen, Croyland-Fen, Thorney-Fen, Whitle- 

 sea-Fen, Bedford-Level, and the whole extent of Ely-Fen, under various deno- 

 minations. This country, under the turf, abounds with subterraneous timber of 

 all kinds ; fir, oak, and brush-wood ; stags' horns : now and then they find a 

 quantity of hazel nuts, crouded together on a heap: I have some of them. This 

 is a matter common to all boggy ground over the whole globe. They are the 

 ruins of the antediluvian world, washed down from the high country, where 

 they grew, here lodged, and by time overgrown with the present turf They 

 that seek for any other solution of this affair, than the universal Noachian de- 

 luge, want to account for a general effect by a partial cause ; and shut their eyes, 

 both to the plain history of this matter, and to the infinite notorious demonstra- 

 tions of it from fossil appearances. 



5. All this country, though underneath it is a watery bog, yet, through this 

 whole summer, and autumnal season (as they can have no natural springs in such 

 a level) the drought has been so great on the superficies, that the inhabitants 

 were obliged every day to drive their cattle several miles, for watering. This 

 skows how fit the dry surface was for an electrical vibration ; and we learn from 

 hence this important particular, that it reaches but very little below the earth's 

 surface. 



Mr. Johnson, in another letter which he wrote concerning the second earth- 

 quake, observed at Spalding, says, on this occasion, he was obliged to scour his 

 canal, and deepen it ; that they came to a white quicksand, which afforded to 

 all the neighbourhood excellent water in plenty. 



In the gravelly soil of London, and where the 1 shocks were felt by us, in 

 the beginning of the year, we know there is not a house in the whole extent of 

 this vast city, and all around it, but a spring of water is ready, on digging a 

 well : whence we have much reason to believe, that the internal parts of the 

 earth are like a sponge soaked in water ; so that the only dry part of it is the 

 superficies ; which is the object, and the subject, of that electric vibration, 

 wherein it seems an earthquake consists. This shows the mistake of the ancients; 

 who, fancying that earthquakes proceeded from subterraneous eruptions, built 

 their prodigious temple of Diana of Ephesus on a boggy ground, to prevent 

 such a disaster. 



6. Earthquakes are truly most violent in a rocky country ; because the shock 

 is proportionate to the solidity of the matter electrified : so that rocks, old castle- 

 walls, and strong buildings, are most obnoxious to the concussion. The Isle of 



