The Causes and Phenomena of Earthquakes. 83 



from East Maitland respecting a clock " which had not gone for 

 months, and could not be coaxed or forced to go, but since mid- 

 night last night," (says the Evening Mail of 19th June) "the 

 pendulum has continued to oscillate, and the clock is apparently 

 as reliable a time-teller as in its most palmy days." 



Again, the stopping of the school clock at Morpeth is what 

 occurred at Lisbon on the 5th April, 1772, when, during some 

 violent shocks, several pendulums stopped. This also was the 

 case at the Observatory in Cadiz, in Spain, on the 12th April, 1773, 

 and again at St. Malo, in France, on the 15th of the same month. 

 Several clocks also stopped at Boppart, on the Rhine, on the 

 evening before the severe shock of 26th February 1780, probably 

 from an otherwise unnoticed shock at the time. On 23rd April, 

 1868, during a sharp shock at San Francisco, Mr. Milner's 

 astronomical clock, and the Bank, Post Office and other clocks 

 stopped at the same instant, viz., 3h. 54m. p.m. It lasted 30 

 seconds, with tremulous motion, (Californian Paper, 25th April.) 

 It is moreover stated that the shock felt at Virginia, in California, 

 on the 29th May 1868, stopped the great 300 horse-power steam 

 engine in work at the mines, and that it was with difficulty again 

 started. 



On these pendulums I would remark, that as they could only 

 have stopped because they vibrated in the plane of the shock, 

 the direction as well as the time is indicated by the stoppage ; 

 and beyond this, observations of the kind are of no especial 

 value, because it does not require an earthquake to derange 

 or regulate a clock. 



Notwithstanding this, the coincidences of the facts noticed 

 with similar facts in Europe long ago are interesting and sugges- 

 tive. They serve to point out that no fact observed during an 

 earthquake, however apparently unimportant, is without a 

 relative value. Even the alarm exhibited by cattle, dogs, poultry, 

 as well as by man, is a useful incident, as proving the occurrence 

 of some invisible influence which marks the intensity of a shock. 

 It is not necessary to say that in numerous earthquakes of old 

 date in other parts of the world, the same effects, in that respect, 

 were noticed as during the earthquake of 18th June. 



JSTor is the occurrence of meteors, as at Maitland, an unusual 

 one. On 6th December, 1674, two igneous meteors or balls of 

 fire fell shortly after the great Switzerland earthquake. At 

 Perth, in Scotland, on January 2nd, 1756, as well as in the west 

 of Ireland, and at Berne, Brieg, and other places in Switzerland, 

 on the 3rd and 5th May of same year, meteors were seen during 

 the shocks that then occurred. A brilliant meteor also followed 

 the shocks at Salonica, in Turkey, on 14th August, 1760 ; and on 

 13th January, 1763, luminous meteors attended the shocks at 

 Nordland, in Sweden. At Coruna, in Spain, on 21st October, 



