GENERAL DESCRIPTION OE EFFECTS OE EARTHQUAKE. 11 



Silchar, but no portion of this lower ground is included in the enclosure 

 of the cemetery. 



In the new cemetry, placed in a lovely spot, a slope of rising ground 

 to the south of the town and at some distance from it, no mischief was 

 done. 



Among other buildings which had been injured by the earthquake 

 prominence had naturally been given to the Deputy Commissioner's 

 house which had received considerable damage. Mr. Edgar himself 

 however at once said that this would afford no index to the force ex- 

 erted, from the peculiar circumstances under which the shock occurred. 

 The house was an ordinary bungalow with one of the heavy native 

 thatched roofs : round the house was a raised verandah, at the outer edp-e 

 of which a series of wooden pillars supported the lower edge of the roof, 

 which was all in one slope. In the ordinary construction, each side of 

 such roof is made in one piece, the whole is then merely tied together and 

 slightly secured in addition by the plastering round the chimney, gene- 

 rally in the centre of the house. 



"When the earthquake of the 10th January came, preparations had 

 been made for the removal of the old wooden pillars, with the view of 

 putting in new ones round the verandah, and on one side these had 

 been partially removed so that the very heavy roof had been deprived of 

 the main support on that side. As 4 [the thatching was to be renewed, 

 it had been weakened in other ways also, the natural consequence being 

 that the whole of one side of the roof was dislodged and slipped bodily 

 down, bringing with it of course portions of the walls, &c, and destroy- 

 ing some furniture in the verandah ; part of the chimney, and of the 

 internal dividing walls were also shaken down and falling in the 

 rooms did some mischief ; there was no one in the house as Mr. Edgar 

 had moved into an adjoining bungalow to allow the repairs of his own 

 to progress. This second bungalow and several others about were 

 uninjured. Although the Commissioner's bungalow looked to be in ac- 

 tual ruins, it is more than probable that it would not have suffered at all 

 but for the condition in which it happened to be. 



( 11 ) 



