32 CLINTON ON THE GREAT LAKES. 
issuing from spiracula in the earth, and it is underlaid with sulphur, coal, 
bitumen, and other inflammable substances. In boring for salt at Rocky 
Hill, in Ohio, about a mile and a half from Lake Erie, after proceeding to 
the depth of one hundred ninety-seven feet, the auger fell and salt water 
spouted out for several hours. After the exhaustion of this water, great 
volumes of inflammable air issued through the aperture for a long time, 
and formed a cloud ; and by ignition by the fire in the shops of the work- 
men, consumed and destroyed every thing in the vicinity. 
Whether the country round the Great Lakes is volcanic or not, is not 
material to the present inquiry. We know that the bowels of the earth are 
stored with inflammable materials, and that there exist strong indications 
of subterranean communications at enormous distances, Indeed every thing 
in earthquakes seems to indicate the action of elastic fluids seeking an out- 
let to spread themselves in the atmosphere. At the period of the last, 
and the preceding destruction of Lisbon, according to Humboldt,* the sea 
was violently agitated as far as America. For instance, at the Island of 
Barbadoes, more than twelve hundred leagues from Portugal, and on Lake 
Ontario, strong agitations of the water were observed in October, 1755. 
The first destruction of Lisbon took place on the first day of November, 
1755, and the last on the thirty-first day of March, 1764, the very year in 
which the sudden swelling of Lake Erie overwhelmed some of Colonel 
Bradstreet’s vessels. 
Bakewell, in his Geology, states that ‘‘ during the earthquake at Lisbon, in 
1775, almost all the springs and Lakes in Great Britain, and in every part of 
Europe, were violently agitated, many of them throwing up mud and sand, 
and emitting a fetid odour. The morning of the earthquake, the hot springs 
at Toplitz, in Bohemia, suddenly ceased to flow for a minute, and then burst 
forth with prodigious violence, throwing up turbid water, the temperature of 
which was higher than before. The hot-wells at Bristol were coloured red, 
and rendered unfit for use for some months afterwards. Even the distant wa- 
ters of Lake Ontario, in North America, were violently agitated at the time.” 
ee ee ee 
* Humboldt’s personal narrative. 
