THE GEOLOGIST. 



NGVEMBEB 1863. 



BKITISH EARTHQUAKES. 

 By the Editor. 



England has been visited by an earthquake. The newspapers have 

 dilated upon it, and hundreds of persons have hastened to record their 

 sensations. They have told us how they got out of bed and lit their 

 candles, as if they had hoped to have seen the earthquake, like a 

 ghost, wandering about the earth ; but earthquakes do not linger, 

 and the last British one was over before most people knew anything 

 about it. Others fancied they heard a great roaring noise; others 

 compared the shock to a great dog or animal shaking itself under the 

 bedstead ; others to the vibrating of a steam-engine. Some saw leaves 

 fall, walls shake, and some felt " a warm breath of air " upon their 

 cheeks. In short, some told the truth as far as they could, and some 

 told what was not quite the truth. If the truth had been simply 

 stated, and the press had helped to state it by publishing as many 

 letters as their correspondents chose to send them, we should 

 have no other comment to make than to have thanked it for its 

 pains. But when leaders were printed in such terrible paroxysmal 

 terms, thanking Heaven we were not all swallowed up, we can 

 scarcely regard such sensation articles as little less than impious. 

 Earthquakes are of the most common occurrence, and science wants 

 cool observations whenever they happen. No doubt they are, when 

 their visitation is severe, amongst, if not the most awful of all cata- 

 strophes. To have a whole city thrown down in an instant, and thou- 

 sands of suffering human beings crushed and lingering in agony be- 



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