MITCHILL ON THE EARTHQUAKES OF 1811, 1812, AND 1813. 305 



required to go from one place to the other. So great a distance from 

 the seat of justice, obviously amounted, in many cases, to a denial of the 

 benefits of the judiciary, and called loudly upon the legislature for a 

 remedy. 



After this minute, reiterated, and, perhaps, tedious detail of facts, it 

 will be rational to attempt some deductions. When I engaged in the 

 task of collecting the evidence on these curious and interesting pheno- 

 mena, I was in expectation that physical occurrences so immediately 

 before our eyes and under our feet, would have qualified me to form 

 something like a tolerable theory of earthquakes. I must own, how- 

 ever, that after all the information I have collected, I have not been 

 enabled to offer a solution, by any means satisfactory to myself. But, 

 although materials may yet be wanting for a perfect theory, it is a mat- 

 ter of some consolation to have assembled into one body, the phenomena 

 of the most memorable earthquakes that ever agitated these parts of 

 North America, and to have made a record of them for my more 

 sagacious and fortunate successors. 



1. The trembling of the earth was felt from the Atlantic Ocean to 

 the regions far beyond the Mississippi. The accounts given by the 

 Indians uniformly stated that the shocks had been very frequent and 

 violent, to a great distance up the Arkansaw. They appear to have 

 been very little felt to the north of the Potomac, and east of the 

 Alleghany. 



2. Though the commotions were of great extent, it was not possible 

 to assign a priority to any place. Though the earthquakes were not 

 equally violent or extensive, yet in those of the widest diffusion or 

 circuit, there was no method of tracing a succession ; on the contrary, 

 the shocks in the most distant situations were synchronous, or nearly so* 



3. Air was produced below, and extricated into the atmosphere. 



41 



