1034 Memoir on Indian Earthquakes. [No. 144. 



only to assign Earthquakes generally to those tracts from which, 

 according to the best information procured, they seem to have pro- 

 ceeded. 



Earthquake of 1809. — The only reference to this Earthquake which 

 I have been able to find, is contained in the following Extract from a 

 paper by H. Falconer, Esq. on the great Cataclysm of the Indus in 1841, 

 (J. A. S. vol. X, p. 618). Having suggested the possibility of the bed 

 of the river having been blocked up at a point high in its course, by 

 mouutain masses precipitated by an Earthquake, he adds, " An event 

 of this sort is not improbable, for we know that in 1809, an Earthquake 

 of such force took place in Gurhwal, that the Bishnoo-Gunga river, 

 one of the great branches of the Ganges, was blocked up below Gosee- 

 nauth by a landslip, and the water rose to 40 feet above its usual 

 level." I had hoped to have been furnished by Dr. Falconer with a 

 reference to the source whence this information was derived, but cir- 

 cumstances unfortunately arose which- prevented his turning his atten- 

 tion to the subject, and I was accordingly disappointed in my hopes. 



Earthquake of the 26th May, 1817. — This Earthquake was experi- 

 enced at Gungoutri, the source of the river Ganges, by Captains 

 Hodgson and Herbert, during their Survey of the Himalayas. The 

 former in his Journal, (Asiatic Researches, vol. XIV, p. 98,) thus graphi- 

 cally describes the effects of the shock : " At night having prepared 

 the instruments to take the immersion of one of Jupiter's satellites, we 

 laid down to rest, but between 10 and 11 o'clock were awakened by 

 the rocking of the ground, and on running out, soon saw the effects of 

 an Earthquake, and the dreadful situation in which we were pitched 

 in the midst of masses of rock, some of them more than 100 feet in 

 diameter, and which had fallen from the cliffs above us, probably 

 brought down by some former Earthquake. 



" The scene around us, shewn in all its dangers by the bright moon 

 light, was indeed very awful. On the second shock, rocks were hurl- 

 ed in every direction from the peaks around to the bed of the river, 

 with a hideous noise not to be described, and never to be forgotten : 

 after the crash caused by the falls near us had ceased, we could still 

 hear the terrible sounds of heavy falls in the more distant recesses of tine 

 mountains. We looked up with dismay at the cliffs overhead, expect- 

 ing that the next shock would detach some ruins from them : had they 

 fallen we could not have escaped, as the fragments from the summit 

 would have flown over our heads, and we should have been buried by 

 those from the middle. 



" Providentially there were no more shocks that night. This Earth- 

 quake was smartly felt in all parts of the mountains, as well as in the 

 plains of the North West Provinces of Hindoostan." On measuring 

 the height of the cliff under which he was when the shock was felt, 

 Captain Hodgson found it to be 2,745 feet. 



In his Journal under date the 30th May, Captain Hodgson remarks : 

 " 6. Road most difficult, over masses of rock which have fallen from 

 above into the stream. This station is full of peril, being a very 



