34 OLDHAM : TEE CACHAR EARTHQUAKE OF lOl'H JANUARY 1869. 



Ilidgellee. — Felt at 4b. 30m., appeared to come from the north-west 

 to the south-east, and lasted 30 to 40 seconds.— [Executive Engineer, 

 January 11th.) 



I have not found any record of the shock being felt at sea by any 

 of the ships in the Bay of Bengal. But on the east coast of the Bay 

 we find it sharply felt. 



Kussilong. — A correspondent of the Englishman {January 18th) 

 writing- from Kussilong, 90 miles from Chittagong, says : — •" It burst with 

 tremendous force. It was travelling apparently eastward and slightly 

 north. The undulations were very severe and lasted nearly two minutes. 

 It seemed as if some mighty wave were sweeping on under the earth, 

 and as it passed the solid earth rose and fell with a motion distinctly 

 visible along the banks of the river and in the hills beyond. The ground 

 was seen to roll wave-like, the hills to reel, and the trees to wave to 

 and fro. The spectacle was wonderful and fearful. Shock occurred at 

 nearly oh. Om. p.m. on the 10th." 



The shock was also felt sharply in Upper Burmah, but we have no 

 detailed accounts of its effects. 



In the preceding pages I have brought together all the notices 

 of the results of this great earthquake which had been given by local 

 observers and by local officers. That it was the same great shock 

 which produced the rattling of the doors and windows at Patna, and the 

 sharp blow-like sensation at Darjeeling as that which ruined Silchar, 

 is, I think, abundantly established. But beyond this little else is fixed. 

 The times, although sufficiently cousentient to prove this, are of no use 

 for any more accurate investigation as to rate of motion ; while the 

 naturally great difficulty of noting accurately the direction in which 

 such wave oscillations occur is amply evidenced. In fact I think it will 

 be obvious that so far as these notices go" there is nothing to 

 give a clue to the true direction in which the forces acted, to the 

 position of the source from which those forces originated, nor as to the 

 mode or rate of transmission of the shock. The only fact established seems 

 ( 34 ) 



