DEcEMBER 24, 1896] 
NATURE 
179 
clamoured. Graziers noticed that their milch cows were greatly 
trembling and seemed dazed, and horses ran about the pastures. 
During the shocks the river Severn here suddenly surged and 
angrily foamed up to the level of its banks, subsiding to its 
former level on the cessation of the 5.31 shocks. At Hallow, a 
labourer stooping to lace his boots was pitched headlong into 
the fire. 
The season here has been marked throughout by exceptionally 
low readings of the barometer, such as 28, 50, 28, 70, and 29. 
The thermometer in my bedroom at 5.31 on the 17th was 38. 
The direction of the wind was northerly. 
Worcester, December 19. J. Liroyp Bozwarp. 
(1) THE only record that I have seen here, undisturbed as 
yet, of the measurable displacement of any object by the shock, 
is that of a large iron ornamental vase on pedestal, weighing at 
least 100 kilos., standing in the middle of a lawn ona stone 
foundation sunk in the ground. This has been moved sideways 
on its foundation through a space of 3 cm. I laid a long 
straight lath close to it in the approximate direction of displace- 
ment, and took compass readings near each end of the lath (to 
eliminate any deflexion due to the mass of iron). The mean of 
the readings gives magnetic N. 18° 30 E., as the direction of 
displacement of the mass. The true direction may, however, 
have been rather nearer to magnetic N., for the pedestal is 
square and slightly sunk below the surface; and as the sides 
were forced obliquely against the turf, the motion may have 
been deflected from the line which would have been taken if 
there had been no resistance. 
_ (2) One piece of evidence that the plane of the oscillation 
here was mainly, at any rate, horizontal, may be worth giving. 
I have a barograph (Richard Fréres pattern) screwed firmly to 
a bracket attached to one of the internal walls of the house. 
The long recording arm of this is so sensitive to changes of 
vertical pressure, that the mere employment of a housemaid’s 
brush near the instrument is enough to cause a vertical displace- 
ment of 1-2 mm. in the ink-trace ; and, contrary to instincts of 
tidiness, I have had to give a caution against dusting operations 
in the neighbourhood, so many ‘‘dust-storms” have been 
graphically registered. 
If, then, there was any vertical movement in the wall during 
the shock, there would undoubtedly be a straight vertical line 
on the ink-trace. If the movement was purely horizontal, the 
pen would simply be jerked away from the paper, and would 
fall back to its former position. 
I examined the register shortly after the shock, and could 
find no trace whatever of any vertical irregularity in the 
barometric trace. The air-pressure, I may also mention, was 
remarkably uniform during many hours preceding and following 
the shock. 
(3) Lastly I would note, as an evidence of weakness and prob- 
able strain in the strata of this district, the extensive line of fault 
(or rather two parallel adjacent faults) which runs nearly N.N.E. 
and S.S.W. through Newent, between the Malvern Range and 
Hereford, where the shock seems to have been most severe. 
‘On the west side of these faults, we have on the surface the Old 
Red Sandstone; on the east side, the Keuper Marls, the Old 
Red having been thrown down at least 4000 feet. 
Gloucester, December 19. Bs, Be 
THE EARTHQUAKE. 
U NTIL last Thursday, the great Essex earthquake of 
1884 held the premier place among British earth- 
quakes of the last few centuries. So far as structural 
damage is concerned it is not yet displaced from that 
position, for, though in many places chimneys were 
thrown down by Thursday’s disturbance (at Hereford at 
least one of the pinnacles of the Cathedral was damaged), 
yet there does not appear to have been that wholesale 
destruction which marked the Essex earthquake at 
Colchester and the surrounding villages. With regard 
to disturbed area, however, the inequality is reversed. 
1 The disturbed area of the Essex earthquake is estimated by Messrs. 
Meldola and White at about 50,000 square miles. This has been exceeded 
-on two later occasions by the Pembroke earthquakes of August 18, 1892, 
and November 2, 1893, a paper on which will be read before the Geological 
Society on January 6 next. 
No. 1417, VOL. 55 | 
Though the recent shock occurred at a time (5.32 a.m.) 
when many observers were asleep, there can be little 
doubt that it was practically felt over the whole of 
England and Wales. At present we have only to 
exclude the terminal counties of Northumberland, 
Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent and Cornwall ; and possibly these 
exceptions will disappear when fuller details are obtained. 
So far, no record has come from Ireland, but there can 
be little doubt that it must have been felt along the east 
coast, if not for some distance inland. 
With regard to my own observations, I was roused at 
5h. 324m. from a dream of earthquakes, by a series of 
fairly strong regular vibrations of approximately equal 
intensity. Those I felt obviously belonged to the second 
half of the shock ; they were eight in number, occupied 
exactly three seconds, and were of equal period, except 
that between the fourth and fifth the interval was half as 
long again as between the others. The motion was 
distinctly lateral, from a nearly westerly direction, the 
return movement being less perceptible than the forward, 
so that the shock appeared to consist of a series of firm 
powerful shoves. No sound was heard during these last 
three seconds, though I awoke with a feeling that the 
noise had just ceased; and this fact led me at once to 
assign a somewhat distant origin to the shock, possibly 
somewhere in Wales. As telegrams gradually arrived 
from various parts, it became evident that the epicentre 
must lie to the south-west, at some fifty miles from 
Birmingham. 
The area within which buildings were damaged, 
includes Hereford, Ross, Worcester, Gloucester, Dursley, 
Cinderford and other places, and is not less than thirty 
miles in length. It would be premature to make any de- 
finite statement as to the exact position of the epicentre, 
or to suggest any fault with which the earthquake may be 
connected. But when these places are plotted on a map, 
one cannot but be struck by the fact that the district 
within which they lie agrees very closely with the 
epicentral areas of two previous earthquakes, those of 
October 6, 1863,! and October 30, 1868.2. The former of 
these was a distinctly strong shock; and even now, in 
making earthquake inquiries in the district, I frequently 
receive references to it. 
As I am collecting materials for a memoir on the 
earthquake of Thursday, I should be glad if I might take 
this opportunity of appealing to all readers of NATURE 
who can in any way help me, either by describing their 
own observations, or inducing others to do so. A brief 
list of questions having recently appeared in NATURE 
(vol. xlvi., p. 401), it is unnecessary to reprint them here.* 
They will also, I hope, be found in many local news- 
papers. If those who have the opportunity would 
examine the records of self-registering instruments, some 
useful information might be obtained with regard to time 
of occurrence at different places. I need hardly say how 
interesting it would be to have photographs of buildings 
which have been in any way damaged by the earthquake. 
I should also be very grateful for any notes, however 
scanty, on the earthquakes of 1863 and 1868 ; for, if the 
suggested connection between them and the recent 
shock should prove a true one, they will in all probability 
furnish important evidence as to the later stages in the 
growth of the originating fault. C. DAVISON. 
373 Gillott Road, Birmingham, December 19. 
P.S.—-Since the above was written, I have received 
records from places in each of the counties mentioned 
above as apparently undisturbed, and from one place in 
Ireland (co. Wicklow). (Om 1D} 
December 22. 
1 E. J. Lowe, F.R.S. ‘ History of the Earthquake of 1863, October 6.” 
Brit. Meteor. Soc. Proc., il., 1865, pp- 55-99- 
2 Symons’s Meteor. Mag., iii., 1868, pp. 153-154. 
3 See also Knowledge for August 1896, pp. 190-191- 
