32 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
jointing is about the most difficult to render a satisfactory account of, 
or to find a solution for. Pressure and shrinkage are the two causes to 
which these phenomena have been attributed, and the influence of the 
former seems to have been that by means of which we can best explain 
the features manifested by this portion of the physical geology of Hook. 
{To be continued.) 
FOREIGN COERESPONDENCE. 
By Dr. T. L. Phipson of Paris. 
Becent Earthquake at Lisbon — Another- Earthquake at Biarritz — 
M. Lejeune's " Lectures on the Geology of France" — A generalization 
hy Alexander Von Humboldt — A word by Georges Cuvier — Burning 
Coal-pits of rAveyron — Formatioyi of Alum — Salt-basins ofVHerault 
— Waterfall of Gavarnie — A passage from the " Views of Nature" 
—French Kaolin — Death and Writings of Madame Ida Pfeiffei — 
Submarine Volcano near Leghorn — Supposed vertebrate remains in 
the Silurian Strata. 
An earthquake took place at a quarter past seven and at nine in the 
morning of the 11th of November last, in Lisljou and some of the pro- 
vincial towns of Portugal. The first shock, which some accounts divide 
into two distinct ones, lasted fully half a minute, and shook every house 
in Lisbon ; the vibrations of the soil were apparently in a north-south 
direction. This is said to liave been the most violent earthquake ex- 
perienced in Lisbon since the great one of 1755, and very little more 
vibration could not have failed to jjroduce the most disastrous conse- 
quences. Many chimneys fell, and walls were thrown down or cracked ; 
but it is said that no building was destroyed completely, although one 
death was caused by the filling of a half-built wall at the Ecole Poly- 
technique. At A^'illa F ranca another death occurred, and at Cintra and 
Mafra a good deal of injury was done to the houses. But of all the 
accounts hitherto received, those from St. Ubes, about eight leagues 
from Lisbon, on the south side of the mouth of the Tagus, are the most 
distressing. A great number of houses were thrown down, and some 
of the inhabitants were buried in the ruins. 
This earthquake was preceded by two days of almost incessant 
rain. 
M. dc Monfort has addressed a letter to the Abbe Moigno, editor 
of Le Cosmos, describing an earthquake, the first he ever witnessed, 
felt at Biarritz on the 29th of November last : — At about one o'clock 
in the afternoon, a dark fog floated heavily in the air, giving to the 
horizon an unusual tint that made M. de Monfort suppose that some- 
thing extraordinary was about to happen. Indeed, he was so influ- 
