50 OLDHAM : THE CACHAR EARTHQUAKE OV 10TH JANUARY 1869. 



suspect that it must have come up through the fissures and indicated 

 the existence of some yielding- layer below, which had been forced up 

 by the pressure of the more solid beds above ; but here the sand was 

 disclosed. Just at the lowest level of the water, stretching for some 

 hundred yards along under the bank, was this 3 feet of soft slimy peaty 

 sand, oozing out its dark chalybeate water and slush. 



Although the great mass of the cliff, which had been split up, had 

 already come down and was being rapidly eaten away in the whirling 

 current of the stream below, small flakes, as it were, were still 

 hanging almost overthrown, and by applying a stick to one of these the 

 whole theory of the motion became evident ; after a few minutes' poking 

 along the crack behind a solid mass, probably weighing on the whole 

 a ton, it became sufficiently disturbed to be started by a very slight 

 additional push. In a moment all that had been quiet before was sud- 

 denly broken up; the instant the support of the mass, by attachment 

 to the bank behind, was separated, its unsupported weight bore upon 

 the soft beds and it came down with a rush ; the foul water and slimy 

 stuff, mixed with sand, was spouted forth in forcible jets, covering one 

 completely with its filthy stains and, almost before the motion could 

 be noticed, the piece of clay above had settled down some 3 feet from 

 its former position ; this motion gradually continued in a slip or 

 sliding motion till slowly the whole glided into the water of the 

 river, and was at once subjected to all the degrading forces of its 

 currents and whirls. A breadth of bank of at least 50 feet was stated 

 to have gone into the river here, leaving an abrupt sheer precipitous cliff 

 of more than 50 feet high. Just at the margin of this stood a fakir's 

 but or rather hole, and of course the man had traded largely on the 

 wonderful evidence of his holiness which the fact afforded, that up to 

 the very edge of his abode, but no further, had the fierce elements been 

 able to wreak their destructive will. The horror with which he watched 

 my little efforts to study practically the effects that had taken place 

 by endeavouring to detach the already half- separated little mass which 

 I threw down, and by so doing of course to that extent weakening the 

 ( 50 ) 



