NOTES AND QUERIE?. 
391 
silicate of magnesia accumulates. A smart blow shivers the mass, and leaves 
the nucleus bare. Great abundance of talc in various forms strews the shore 
resembling leaves, flat plates, &c. 
The tusks and bones of the Elephas primigenius are found here when the 
cliff falls down — a circumstance which frequently occurs when the sea under- 
mines it. 
Nearly opposite this place, when the spring-tides recede, a number of trunks 
and branches of large trees are seen at low- water mark, partially buried in the 
mud, and evidently the denizens of some ancient wooa which has been sub- 
merged when the sea encroached on these shores. The wood is 
black, and when dry as hard as ebony, making good posts for gates, field- 
rollers, &c, 
I may also mention that about a mUe out at sea, off Hampton, is the Pan 
sand, where large quantities of Roman pottery have been dredged up. Several 
fine paterse of Samian ware have been found, and lately a mortarium in good 
preservation. This last was sent to the British Museum. It is a little ccrious 
that within these few weeks some paterse and other Homan utensils quite 
similar to those found on the Pan sand have been dug up at St. Sepulchre's, 
Canterbury. In some instances the same makers' names were stamped upon 
the articles dug up at Canterbury and upon those found at "sea. 
I send you these rough sketches of incidents occurring in my rambles, pre- 
suming they may be of some slight interest to your readers. — I am very faith- 
fully yoursj John Brent, Barton. 
[The marks noticed in the sand are probably the old tubes of Sabellse, if the 
sand is of marine origin ; or worm-tubes if a freshwater deposit. It would 
be worth while for the observer to compare the tubes formed now by the 
Sabella common in the sands of the Kentish shore with the objects he describes. 
I hav^e seen what I believe to be Sabella-tubes in the Lower Greensand in a 
cutting on the camp-ground at Shorncliffe, near Folkestone ; and if the sand 
at Hackington, near Canterbury, be a Tertiary marine sand, as I suppose it to 
be, it is probable that Sabella-tubes w'ould occur in it. These tubes being 
held together only by glutinous matter, would not be very solid, and probably 
in a fossil state, would exhibit tlie puzzling conditions referred to by Mr. Brent. 
The sand in which they would occur would most probably be incoherent, and 
they are therefore very like to be exposed by wind action as stated. — 
Ed. Geol.] 
The Earthquake at Mendoza. — Mendoza was a city containing twenty 
thousand souls, and presented all the appearance of a flourishing and increasing 
place. There remains to-day but a small chapel, the only building that with- 
stood (perhaps owin^ to its foundation not bemg deep) the fearful earthquake 
which reduced the city in five minutes to a heap of ruins, under which were 
buried more than two-thirds of its population. Of those that were able to 
make their escape, some were seriously hurt, others lost their senses in the 
terror created by this awful phenomenon. 
The earthquake declared itself on the 20th of March last, at half-past eight 
o'clock at night ; the shock was so violent, the fall of the houses so rapid, that 
the inhabitants had not time to effect their escape, and were crushed to death. 
The hour of the night in which the catastrophe took place, being a time when 
the city was in repose (for the inhabitants were an industrious race, of 
simple habits, and the town devoid of the amusements of large capitals) 
tended to increase the confusion and the number of victims. 
The earth continued to open in several places, emitting violent streams of 
water, and then immediately closing up again. 
A singular circumstance is related, namely, that this lamentable occurrence 
