its first situation. Several oaks are still standing, 

 and in a state of vegetation, after taking the same 

 desperate leap. That great part of this prodigious 

 mass was absorbed in some gulf below is plain also 

 from the inclining ground at the bottom of the hill, 

 which is free and unincumbered ; but would have 

 been buried in heaps of rubbish had the fragment 

 parted and fallen forward. About a 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 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 peo- 

 ple in the evening, which was very dark and tem- 

 pestuous, 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 tremor of the ground, indicat- 

 ing 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 solici- 

 tude and confusion, expecting every moment to be 

 buried under the ruins of their shattered edifices. 

 When daylight 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 



