188 PROCEEDINGS OF THE [Jan., 1888. 



Mk. Mazyck stated that on the occasion of the last earthquake shock, which 

 occurred at 10.54 o'clock, a. m. on the 12th inst., he had been able to verify in 

 a remarkable degree the opinion exj)ressed by him in the notes which he had 

 prepared for the use of the Commission appointed by the Society,* regarding 

 the movement and course of the earth- wave. He was seated at the time in his 

 office, on the second floor of the three story brick building, at the S.E. comer 

 of King and Ann Streets, when the lifting of the N. W. angle of the building 

 was plainly evident. The duration of the agitation was about 45 seconds, and 

 its intensity was quite severe, about as much so as that of the shock which oc- 

 curred on 10th April last, and sufficiently so to crack one of the tall chimnies 

 of the S. C. Eailway Co. 's workshops ; to throw down books from shelves, &c. , 

 and in some places in the lower part of the City, to crack plastering. From 

 the effects noted in his office, Mr. Mazj^ck is quite positive that the movement 

 of the wave was as he had previously been led to beheve. A smoke arrester, 

 pendant from the chandelier above his desk, so suspended as to be capable of 

 movement laterally in any direction, was set in violent motion on a Une from 

 JV. W. to 8.E., which continued for 4 minutes and 12 seconds. A small book- 

 case stands on the top of an iron safe near the S.E. wall of the room, its doors 

 opening towards the N. W. ; both it and the safe were vlsibli/ tilted towards the 

 S.E. by the lifting of the building under the first impulse of the shock, and 

 upon its settling after the passage of the wave the doors of the book-case were 

 thrown partially open. The chair in which he was seated is furnished with . 

 casters and was moved slightly towards the S.E. The direction of movement 

 was observed by members of his household at his residence in Montague St. 



Dr. Chables U. Shepaed, commenting upon Mr. Mazyck's remarks, said 

 that in the early part of September, 1886, he had constructed an apparatus de- 

 signed to show the direction of the seismic waves. It consisted of a round con- 

 cave glass dish, about five inches in diameter and half an inch in depth, to 

 whose sides were attached eight radiating, funnel-shaped, paper spouts, with 

 the broad ends of the latter touching each other at the rim of the glass. The 

 glass was supported on a firrn stand ; and was filled to the utmost with mercury 

 until the centre of the fluid was raised very considerably above the level of the 

 edge of the glass, and no further addition could be made without the discharge 

 of some of the mercury over the rim and thi'ough the spouts into beaker glasses 

 placed at and under the narrow ends of the spouts. 



The apparatus was placed on a firm table on the ground floor of his house, 

 (68 Meeting Street,) and the spouts directed respectively to the North, North- 

 East, East, South-East, South, South-West, West, and North-West. It was 

 sufficiently delicate to cause a discharge of some of the mercury through the 

 spouts on the occurence of any considerable jarring of the floor of the room in 

 which it was located — such as might be produced by heavy and violent walking 

 thereon. But it failed to record the lesser earthquake shocks which occurred 

 so frequently in the period from about the beginning of the second, to the end 



* See pages 132 and 151. 



