46 Mr. R. Edmonds on Earthquakes 



at the rate of five to six miles an hour, carrying a lighter, which 

 was previously aground at Mr. James's wharf, entirely up to the 

 Truro quay, a circumstance of very extraordinary character *'*. 

 On the 17th (three days afterwards) a similar phenomenon was 

 observed at Liverpool. All these happened during that week of 

 terrific storms ending on Sunday night, the 19th, when the ba- 

 rometer was lower than it had been for three years before. This 

 week is still more memorable from being in the midst of the 

 nineteen days of earthquakes which desolated the island of Fayal 

 in the Azorean group. 



It is a fact worthy of investigation, that when a phenomenon 

 of this kind occurs at the ports of Mountsbay, a similar occur- 

 rence always takes place, as far as I have been able to ascertain, 

 contemporaneously at Plymouth ; and probably also in the inter- 

 mediate harbours of Falmouth and Fowey, — and this, too, whether 

 such agitation be noticed elsewhere or not. The days in the 

 present century on which these disturbances were observed, both 

 in Mountsbay and in Plymouth, are, 31st May and 8th June, 

 1811; 5th July and 30th October, 1843; 23rd May, 1847; 

 25-26th June and 4th October, 1859; and 14th October, 

 1862, — the agitations, although not accompanied with known 

 earthquakes, being precisely of the same character as those in 

 Mountsbay and Plymouth on the days of the great earthquakes 

 of 1755 and 1761 ; except that at Newlyn, in the north-west 

 corner of Mountsbay, in 1755 the sea a came on like a surge or 

 high-crested wave" f ; and that in Lamorna Cove, three miles 

 south of Newlyn, in the same bay, the sea, as I have been in- 

 formed by two descendants of an eye-witness, rushed to the shore 

 in enormous waves, sweeping along blocks of granite weighing 

 several tons each, and leaving some of them eight or ten feet 

 above the level of spring tides. On the 31st of May, 1811, 

 above mentioned, the agitation at Plymouth (says Mr. Luke 

 Howard) "commenced about 3 a.m. and did not terminate till 

 10. The sea fell instantaneously about four feet, and immedi- 

 ately rose about eight feet. Universal consternation pervaded 

 the whole port. The vessels in Catwater were thrown about in 

 the greatest confusion ; many dragged their anchors, some 

 drifted, and several lost their bowsprits and yards. About 6.45 

 the sea rose to the height of eleven feet and again receded" J. In 

 Mountsbay, on the day of the great earthquake of Lisbon, the 

 perpendicular rise of the sea at Penzance pier was eight feet, but 

 at Newlyn pier not less than ten feet. These tide-like alterna- 



* West Briton of 24th October, 1862. 



t Phil. Trans, vol. xlix. p. 373. 



% See Edinb. Phil. Trans, vol. xv. p. 618, 



