THE GEOLOGIST. 
NOVEMBER 1863. 
BEITISH EARTHQUAKES. 
By the Editor. 
Enqla?^d has been visited by an earthquake. Tlie 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 tlie 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 sliaking 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- 
VOL. TI. ^ ^ 
