140 PROCEEDINGS OF THE [July, 1887. 



the earth, I answered ' no, I feared water, ' and in order to test my theory tore 

 the planking from the well- curb, and with a light examined the water. It had 

 sunk. But in an hour after that, say 1.30 o'clock, it was up to the usual mark, 

 and from that, it kept rising until, about 1 o'clock on Wednesday, it was up to 

 the surface of the ground. At that time I left on the train to refugee in Col- 

 umbia, above this alluvial region, and upon a granitic formation. 



At Columbia I put up my pendulum against the wall of my room and found 

 the shocks came in a direction from E. to N. E., and they were horizontal. 



Before leaving Summerville, however, I had visited the salses (improperly 

 called geysers, ) and found at least one hundred in the space of an acre in front 

 of Mr. Eugheimer's house. From salse to salse in some places were fissures — 

 one over fifty yards long. 



From my experience I was convinced that there was no volcanic action, but 

 that the seismic force was local at first, vertical, not deep seated, in the lime- 

 stone formation, (or limestone sea, as Humboldt calls it,) and that a large area 

 of the coastal-plain would have to undergo the same movements in settling 

 down, so that Summerville would be the last as well as the first place to feel 

 their shocks, being the centre of the circle subject to disturbance. 



That it was vertical, is proved by my own sensations; by the lamps going out 

 as the air rushed down their chimnies when they were upheaved ; hj the per- 

 pendicularity of the orifices of the salses, and the regular circularity of their 

 mud emissions ; hy the instantaneous coincidence of sound and force ; and by 

 the want of uniformity of direction in the fall of furniture, &c. That it was 

 not deep, is proved b} the salses, (so Humboldt says, in Vol. I, p. 225, of his 

 Cosmos). If it had been deep seated, the water would have come hot, and for- 

 ced like a geyser out of a large orifice, instead of like out of a sieve, as it was. " 



Mr. Henry L. Barker of Oakley writes : 



"On the night of August 31st, 1886, I had gone to Monck's Corner depot 

 with a friend. When about two and one-half miles from that place we were 

 startled by an appalling, unearthly roaring noise in the South West, being the 

 direction from us of Summerville. The shocks of the previous Friday and 

 Saturday flashed across my mind and I called out 'another earthquake.' We 

 were in tolerably rapid motion at the time, and none of the party detected any 

 thing like a jarring or iipheaval of the earth, though my friend, Mr. S. P. 

 Stoney, complained of nausea. A little distance on, we came to a house on the 

 roadside, and found the occupants standing terror stricken in the road. Upon 

 inquiry, to our surprise, they told us that they thought the house would have 

 been shaken to pieces,- so severe had been the shock. The fii'st one took place 

 at 9.55. WhUe we were talking, 'the roaring again sounded in the S. W. and 

 this time, not being in motion, we felt it very distinctly, as if some heavy 

 weight had struck the buggy jarring it considerably. At the same time we 

 could hear the windows of the house near which we were ratthng and the tim- 

 bers creaking and gi'oaniug. We then resumed our journey, and for the re- 



