348 Judge Tenney’s account of an earthquake. 
plank floor. The loud report that succeeded seemed to most people 
to be at their very doors.» A gentleman in N. Hampton, seven 
miles eastward of this town, heard the report, but did not notice the 
previous rumbling ; and described it precisely’as it appeared to me. 
A similar report was heard at Conway, seventy or eighty miles north, 
though not near so loud. From the circumstance of this report hav- 
ing been heard in places so distant one from another, while in most 
others it was not noticed at all, it is natural to infer, that there wasa 
number accompanying the earthquake in its progress. My mind was 
so strongly impressed, at the time, with a belief that a large body of 
elastic vapour had burst from the bowels of the earth, at no great dis- 
tance, that I fully expected to hear of a discovery of some striking 
marks of it on its surface. The only i instance in which such a report 
has been recorded, as attending any earthquake in this country, is one 
mentioned by Dr. Williams, in his “ Observations and Conjectures on 
the Earthquakes of New England,” in the first volume of the Memoirs 
_of the American Academy, that happened on the 3d of June 1744 
The opinions of people relative to the course of this earthquake 
are various. I attempted to ascertain it by observing the direction of 
the vibrations ; but not having turned my attention to the subject sea 
— I was not able to satisfy myself. Within the limits of New: 
Hampshire it appears, from the information I have by inquiry obtain« 
ed, to have operated with the greatest violence over the tract of coun- 
try between Haverhill, Coos, and Portsmouth, which is nearly midway 
between the Northeastern and Southwestern limits of the earthquake 
From the bearing of these two places from each other, we may fairly 
conclude, that its general course was in this direction. And this co™ 
responds with the general course of all the larger ots seit that 
have been observed in this part of the country. 
The violence of this shock may be estimated by the eee cit 3 
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