264 Memoir on Indian Earthquakes. [No. 1 36. 



up with so much labour, injured several of our bastions, demolished a 

 third of the town, made a considerable breach in the rampart of a 

 curtain in the Peshawur face, and reduced the Cabool gate to a shape- 

 less mass of ruins. It savours of romance, but it is a sober fact, that the 

 city was thrown into alarm, within the space of little more than one 

 month by the repetition of full one hundred shocks of this terrific 

 phenomenon of nature." 



The Jellalabad Earthquake is here considered solely in its relations 

 to science ; but it may be permitted me to turn for a moment from the 

 cold record of physical phenomena, and to express the admiration 

 all must feel at the noble conduct of that gallant band, whose moral 

 courage rose superior to the depressing influence of such a series of 

 convulsions at such a crisis, and whose physical exertions so rapidly 

 obliterated their devastating effects, that their wondering foes could 

 attribute the result only to some supernatural agency, to some English 

 witchcraft. 



The superior intensity of the Earthquake in the immediate vicinity 

 of Jellalabad, and the incessant state of " tremblemenf into which the 

 earth there was thrown for so long a period after the great shock, 

 appear to me to render it almost certain, that the focus of disturbing 

 force was situated in that valley, and that the undulations generated 

 were propagated East and West from some point in it as a centre. 

 Most of the shocks subsequent to the great one of the 19th February 

 were local, and a very few only were felt at Peshawur to the Eastward, 

 and none in so far as I know to the Westward. The disturbing force 

 to which the series was due, must therefore have been confined in its 

 action to the valley of Jellalabad, and the effects would indicate, that its 

 focus was at no very great depth beneath the surface of the earth, and 

 that farther, a large amount of its power was expended on the 19th, 

 since the other shocks were feeble in comparison with the one expe- 

 rienced on that day. 



From the best information I can procure, the time at which the 

 Earthquake was felt at Jellalabad was llh. 40m. a. m. All the times 

 subsequently stated, will be reduced to Jellalabad time, so as to shew 

 correctly the progress of the shock. This correction was neglected in 

 my notes formerly published, in consequence of the very great discre- 



