April T, 1881] 



NATURE 



531 



there are some remarkable examples, houses forming 

 south-east and north-west corners were exceedmgly 

 damaged, viz. south-east was the direction where the 

 first shock came from. . 



In the environs of Agram the earthquake appeared with 

 no less strength than in the town itself, but the daniage 

 to the surrounding country is not so general, because here 

 are the peasants' cottages all built of wood. Here therefore 

 only the churches, the parsons' houses, schools, castles, 

 and gentlemen's private houses were the objects on which 

 the earthquake left visible marks. 



All the buildings of any strength in the villages which 

 are situated at the south-east slope of the mountain called 

 Sleme, north from Agram, were damaged in a more or m 

 a less degree ; there is for instance the well-known place 

 for pilgrimages, Remete (5 km. north of Agram), where 

 the walls of the church, which is ornamented inwardly 

 with very beautiful frescoes, and of the steeple are strongly 

 gaped in all directions, while the vaulted roof of the nave 

 is totally fallen down ; so is also the residence of the 

 parson ; the damage caused in these two edifices amounts, 

 according to an official valuation, to 38,000 florins. In 

 Grancsina (7 km. north-east from Agram) the steeple, 

 falling down in an easterly direction, broke through the 

 roof and the vault of the church, so that now one can see 

 only the four very ruptured walls. On the other side of 

 the mountain Sleme, in a certain part of Croatia named 

 Zagoria, many castles were ruined. 



The circle, where the earthquake caused the heaviest 

 losses has approximately the following bounds :— South- 

 west, Karlstadt ; west, Landstrass, Gurkfeld ; north-north 

 west, Rohitsch ; north, Warasdin, Csdktornya ; north- 

 east, Kaproncza (Kopreinitz) ; east, Belovdr ; south-east, 

 Sziszek, which corresponds to a territory of about I20sqtiare 

 miles ■ the centre of this circle was the place where the first 

 shock emanated from. The data kept in the surrounding 

 parts relative to the direction and the greatest intensity 

 of the shock indicate the territory which lies to south-east 

 from Agram, and forms the alluvium of the River Save 

 as the starting-point of the whole phenomenon. Here 

 the crevice in the earth appeared also, caused by the 

 strongly- oscillated motion. A little to the east from the 

 village of Resnik (east-south-east from Agram) was the cre- 

 vice in the alluvium of the Save. It was 5 kilometres long, 

 and had several interruptions, and extended in a south- 

 east direction, from which here and there some smaller 

 crevices radiated. This chief crevice, which continued 

 through the Save as far as the village of Scitarjevo, showed 

 in some places a few days after the earthquake openings 

 one to two feet broad, but for the most part the crevice 

 was filled with bluish alluvial sand, which was forced out, 

 mixed with water by the opening and closing of the 

 crevice being formed by the oscillation of the soil, the 

 water forcing its way through this dense pulp, produced 

 by its upheaval those small flat craters which many 

 people are inclined to declare volcanoes of mud. The 

 dimension of these small craters is very variable ; their 

 diameters differ between 2 and /Jem., their height i to 

 30C.m. ; and, calculating from these numbers the cubic 

 contents of the largest flat cone, we receive nearly 0-5 

 cubic metres ; this little quantity of the out-pressed 

 material is enough to exclude the hypothesis that these 

 cones were the result "of a slow action for some hours." 

 If hydro-sulphuric gas was present during this pheno- 

 menon, as some Ijelieve, it is not known, because we want 

 positive and trusty evidence on this point. Moreover it 

 is not impossible that there should be an appearance of 

 small quantities of hydrosulphuric gas dissolved in the 

 water of an alluvial ?limy soil, because such water gener- 

 ally contains decaying substances and finely-dispersed 

 sulphates, but one can in no case suppose that a great 

 quantity of hydrosulphuric gas would have produced the 

 crevices and ejected the sand mixed with water. 



Beyond this territory of 120 square miles the earthquake 



was felt with a gradually diminishing strength, and in 

 many places the motion was so weak that a great many 

 of the inhabitants did not remark it. Among these can 

 be mentioned Fiume, where they felt only a very slight 

 shock ; then Budapest and Vienna, where only one or 

 two became attentive to this phenomenon. 



Beyond the territory of 120 square miles, where they 

 suffered the strongest shocks, there are yet some environs, 

 though far enough from the centre, where destruction also 

 happened, for instance in Stjria, and in Hungary, in the 

 neighbourhood of Pdcs (Funfkirchen). To explain the 

 connection of these cases with the entire phenomenon 

 deeper researches must be made. 



It remains to communicate shortly the statics of the 

 earthquake. 



1. November 9, at yh. 33m. 53s. in the morning, the 

 first shock enduring 10 seconds with a subterranean 

 noise. This one has caused all the damage. 



2. November 9, at 7h. 37m. in the morning: an 

 oscillatory motion without a noise. _ 



3. November 9, at 8h. 27m. 55s, in the morning;: slight 

 motion. 



4. November 9, at loh. 50m. in the evening : very 

 slight motion. 



5. November 10, at 6h. in the morning : very slight 

 motion. 



6. November 11, at iih. 26m. in the forenoon: a 

 strong oscillation, which effected some damage. 



7. November 16, at i2h. 4m. in the morning: a 

 sufficiently strong shock accompanied with a dull noise. 



8. November 16, at I2h. 44m. ) 



9- .. .' '2h- 49m- (in the morning: 



10. „ ,, ih. 9m. I 



II- „ ). 4h- 24m- ) , , ,. , 



weak oscillations, of which only the last had a little more 

 strength than the others. 



So it lasted continually during December. Even in 

 this year (1881) in January and February feeble shocks 

 recurred after longer interruptions ; the last shock wis 

 recorded in the newspapers from March 4 



Budapest, March 18 



T' 



THE ST. PETERSBURG DYNAMITE MINE 



HE following account of the mine recently discovered 

 - in St Petersburg, extracted from Russian sources, 

 gives a remarkable picture of the state of society in the 

 empire, where able chemists and expert miners can be 

 found to engage in such desperate undertakings. 



It appears from a sketch-plan which accompamed the 

 translation put into our hand;, that the mine extended 

 from one side of Malaya Sadobaya Street to the centre of 

 the roadway ; the total length of the mine gallery being 

 fifteen paces, the street must be thirty paces, say seventy- 

 five feet wide. , j 1.1 •* 



The gallery terminated in a chamber about double its 

 diameter, and in this was found the charge contained in 

 a case twentv-lwo inches long and eight inches diameter, 

 wei'^ring sixty-five pounds, and beside this a glass jar 

 contained about thirty pounds more of the e^plf'^'e 

 substance, apparently an excess quantity over that re- 

 nuired for the actual explosion. The explosive consisted 

 of a species of dynamite made by mixing nitro-glycerine 

 with powdered charcoal. This is more powerful in its 

 eflects than the ordinary substance, in which an inert 

 body, generally a soft infusorial earth, takes the place 

 of the charcoal. The description of the fuse, as con- 

 tained in the Russian account, is very obscure, but so 

 far as can be made out it would appear to have consisted 

 of a wide heavy glass tube containing an explosiv-e, 

 described some time back in Nature, and P'-epared by 

 mixing nitro-glycerine with about 10 per cent, of gun- 

 Totton" the refult being a very explosive subs arice of a 

 partially gelatinous character. In the midst of this, and 



