W. Whitaker— Brighton Water- Works. 159 



studied this earthquake, 1 mainly from the reports of lighthouse- 

 keepers, shows that its epicentrum was in the neighbourhood of the 

 island and lighthouse of Phladda, and therefore at a place on or 

 close to the great fault which traverses Scotland in a south- westerly- 

 direction from Inverness. In all probability, the shock was caused 

 by a slip of this fault, some distance below Phladda. On the map 

 illustrating Mr. Stevenson's paper are marked, not only the places 

 where the shock was distinctly felt, but also those where it is ex- 

 pressly stated that no shock or tremor was observed. A glance at 

 this map suffices to show that, along the line of fault, no shock was 

 noticed at the five places nearest the epicentrum, while at two more 

 distant places in Scotland, and again, in the opposite direction on 

 the coast of Ireland, the earthquake was distinctly felt. 2 



In the same manner, the following well-known instances may 

 perhaps be accounted for, though the facts are too few to admit of 

 circumstantial proof 3 — the sparing of a solitary house at Radicina 

 during the Calabrian earthquake of 1783, while the rest of the town 

 was entirely levelled ; the phenomenon described by Humboldt, when 

 the earthquake is said by the Andean natives to " form a bridge," 

 being felt in two near but separated areas, and hardly at all in that 

 between ; and, lastly, a somewhat similar instance mentioned by 

 Darwin as occurring during the Concepcion earthquake of 1835. 



IV. — On the Waterworks at Goldstone Bottom, Brighton. 



By W. Whitaker, E.A., F.G.S., Assoc. Inst. C.E. 

 Communicated by permission of the Director- General of the Geological Survey. 



THESE works were at first only supplementary to the Lewes Road 

 Works, on the east ; but now are the chief source of supply. 

 They were begun in 1865, and are placed in a hollow in the Chalk, 

 in open ground at the north-western edge of Brighton. This 

 hollow, the bottom of which, I am told, is 30 feet below the lowest 

 part of its rim, is perhaps in itself an evidence of the existence of 

 underground water, being due, most likely, as is usually the case in 

 limestone-districts, to the dissolving away of the rock by under- 

 ground water and to the consequent sinking-in of the surface. It is 

 an analogous occurrence to the Meres of Norfolk, except that these 

 are generally more or less filled with water, whilst Goldstone Bottom 

 is quite dry at the surface. I may mention that at the time of my 

 visit there was so thick a fog that it was impossible to see the hollow. 

 The Brighton Waterworks are perhaps the best example of the 

 method to be employed in getting a very large supply from the 



1 "The Earthquake of 28th November, 1880, in Scotland and Ireland," Edin- 

 burgh Roy. Soc. Proc, vol. xi. pp. 176-187. 



2 It should be mentioned that at two other places near Phladda, and not on the line 

 of fault, the earthquake passed unnoticed. 



3 Dolomieu, "A dissertation on the Earthquakes in Calabria Ultra, ■which 

 happened in the year 1783," Pinkertou's Voyages and Travels, vol. v. p. 290. — 

 Humboldt's Personal Narrative, vol. iv. p. 21. — C. Darwin, " On the Connexion of 

 certain Volcanic Phenomena in South America, etc.," Geol. Trans, second series, 

 vol. v. pp. 605-6. 



