302 EARTHQUAKES. 



the records of those prognostications as the survival of 

 accidental guesses, and, as such, examples of the survival 

 of the useless. 



The effect of accidental occurrences of this description 

 upon an uneducated mind, in engendering superstition, is 

 a subject which has often been dwelt upon, and the diffi- 

 culty of eradicating the same — as may be judged of by the 

 following accident which came under the observation of 

 Mr. T. B. Lloyd and the author, in 1873, when travelling 

 in Newfoundland — will be easily appreciated. 



At the time to which I refer, my companion was 

 bringing a canoe down the rapids below the Grand Pond 

 in a country which is practically uninhabited, and where 

 an Indian trapper would perhaps be the only person met 

 with, and this not more than once a year. Whilst 

 shooting the rapids one of the Indians, Eeuben Soulian, 

 shot at a deer passing up one bank of the river. That 

 the deer had been hit was testified by a trail of blood 

 which bespattered the rocks. Subsequently several more 

 shots were fired, and it was believed by all that the deer 

 was killed. Soulian quickly followed the animal to the 

 spot where it was supposed to have fallen. Some time 

 after he returned, having failed to find any trace of the 

 animal. He was greatly agitated, but eventually became 

 melancholy, saying that the sudden disappearance of the 

 animal was a sure sign that some of his relations had 

 suddenly died. About two hours afterwards Mr. Lloyd's 

 party met with a party of Indians coming up the river, 

 the first they had seen for four weeks, who told them 

 that Soulian's sister had just died on the coast. 



In the northern part of South America certain shocks 

 are anticipated by preliminary vibrations which cause a 

 little bell attached to a T-shaped frame (cruz sonante) to 

 ring. There are, however, persons (trembloron) who are 



