340 ' Earthquake in Connecticut, Sfc. 



they seem to have their centre, rise and origin among lis,) as has 

 been observed for more than thirty years. I have been informed, 

 that in this place, before the Enghsh settlements, there were 

 great numbers of Indian inhabitants, and that it was a place of 

 extraordinary Indian pawaivs, or in short, that it was a place 

 where the Indians drove a prodigious trade at worshipping the 

 devil. Also I was informed, that, many years past, an old Indian 

 was asked what was the reason of the noises in this place ? To 

 which he replied, that the Indian's God was very angry because 

 Englishman's God was come here. 



" Now whether there be any thing diabolical in these things, 

 I know not ; but this I know, that God Almighty is to be seen 

 and trembled at, in what has been often heard among us. Wheth- 

 er it be fire or air distressed in the subterraneous caverns of the 

 earth, cannot be known ; for there is no eruption, no explosiori 

 perceptible, but by sounds and tremors, which sometimes are 

 very fearful and dreadful. I have myself heard eight or ten 

 sounds successively, and imitating small arms, in the space of five 

 minutes. I have, I suppose, heard several hundreds of them 

 within twenty years ; some more, some less terrible. Sometimes 

 we have heard them almost every day, and great numbers of 

 them in the space of a year. Oftentimes I have observed them 

 to be coming down from the north, imitating slow thunder, until 

 the sound came near or right under, and then there seemed to 

 be a breaking like the noise of a cannon shot, or severe thunder, 

 which shakes the houses and all that is in them. They have in 

 a manner ceased, since the great earthquake. As I remember, 

 there have been but two heard since that time, and those but 

 moderate." 



Dr. Trumbull, without giving an exact date, goes on to remark 

 in his history : " A worthy gentleman, about six years since, gave, 

 the following account of them."* — " The awful noises, of which 

 Mr. Hosmer gave an account, in his historical minutes, and con- 

 cerning which you desire further information, continue to the pre- 

 sent time. The effects they produce, are various as the intermedi- 

 ate degrees betweeu the roar of a cannon and the noise of a pistol. 



* As the venerable historian placed the MS. of his second volume confiden- 

 tially in the hands of the senior editor of this Journal in the year 1810, the let- 

 ter alluded to above must have been written about the beginning of the present 

 century. 



