GENERAL MEETING. Al 
ance. An analogous case is seen in the fact that the great destruc- 
tion of life and property at Lisbon, in 1755, occurred in those por- 
tions of the city built on weak Tertiary formations, while houses on 
the firmly consolidated Secondary rocks suffered little damage. 
The following velocities of wave transmission are indicated : 
To— Feet per second. Miles per minute. 
MOMoOMtOe ONtAriO @ see os ee Coe 15,000 170 
Wreebington, D.C. 522s Lc) 18,000 148 
Prarie dur@hien,, Wise: 224 222-825 . 93800 106 
OURO a Soe eee cece Le eOU 141 
By way of comparison the following recorded velocities are of 
interest: Lisbon, 1755, 2,000 feet per second; Naples, 1857, 1775; 
St. Lawrence valley, 1870, 12,000; England, 1884, 9,200. 
Reported directions of transmission, while very often what we 
should expect, are yet generally so contradictory as to be of little 
value. Similarly the number of shocks felt is recorded so differently 
by different observers as to be very confusing ; the occurrence of 
two shocks at a point at some distance from the origin is explained 
by the hypothesis that the first traveled rapidly through the hard 
under-lying rocks, and the second more slowly through the softer 
and more recent strata above. The shock is reported as accom- 
panied by sounds of greater or less intensity all along the extent 
of Archean rocks from northern Alabama to Connecticut, and at 
points on the coastal plain within a radius of about 300 miles from 
the origin. 
The coincidence of an unusually high tide is worthy of remark ; 
the moon was near perigee, and there had been an eclipse of the 
sun only three days previously. The fact that no sea-wave was 
caused by the shock confirms the conclusion that the origin was in- 
land. The weather is generally reported to have been very still 
and: sultry, although there were no unusual barometric conditions. 
The summer had been an unusually dry one. 
Only two other recorded earthquakes in North America can be 
compared with this in either area or intensity: that at New Madrid, 
Missouri, in 1811, which was probably fully its equal, and that in 
the St. Lawrence valley in 1870, equal possibly in area but not in 
intensity. 
Mr. Paut explained the generally received classification of earth- 
quake waves, described some of the results of the Tokio earthquake 
