CATASTROPHE AT HARTELEY PARK, 
219 
Stood a cottage by the side of a lane ; and two hundred yards 
lower, on the other side of the lane, was a farm-house, in which 
lived a labourer and his family ; and, just by, a stout new barn 
The cottage was inhabited by an old woman and her son and 
his wife. These people in the evening, which was very dark 
and tempestuous, observed that the brick floors of their kitchens 
began to heave and part; and that the walls seemed to open, 
and the roofs to crack : but they all agree that no tremour of the 
ground, indicating an earthquake, was ever felt; only that the 
wind continued to make a most tremendous roaring in the woods 
and hangers. The miserable inhabitants, not daring to go to 
bed, remained in the utmost solicitude and confusion, expecting 
every moment to be buried under the ruins of their shattered 
edifices. When day-light came they were at leisure to contem- 
plate the devastations of the night : they then found that a deep 
rift, or chasm, had opened under their houses, and torn them, as 
it were, in two ; and that one end of the barn had suffered in a 
similar manner ; that a pond near the cottage had undergone a 
strange reverse, becoming deep at the shallow end, and so vice 
versa; that many large oaks were removed out of their perpen- 
dicular, some thrown down, and some fallen into the heads of 
neighbouring trees ; and that a gate was thrust forvrard, with its 
hedge, full six feet, so as to require a new track to be made to it. 
From the foot of the cliff the general course of the ground, which 
is pasture, inclines in a moderate descent for half a mile, and is 
interspersed with some hillocks, which were rifted, in every 
direction, as well towards the great woody hanger, as from it. In 
the first pasture the deep clefts began : and running across the 
lane, and under the buildings, made such vast shelves that the 
road was impassable for some time ; and so over to an arable 
field on the other side, which was strangely torn and disordered 
The second pasture field, being more soft and springy, was pro- 
truded forward without many fissures in the turf, which was 
raised in long ridges resembling graves^ lying at right angles to 
the motion. At the bottom of this enclosure the soil and turf 
rose many feet against the bodies of some oaks that obstructed 
their further course and terminated this awful commotion. 
The perpendicular height of the precipice, in general, is twenty- 
three yards ; the length of the lapse, or slip, as seen from the 
fields below, one hundred and eighty-one; and a partial fall, 
concealed in the coppice, extends seventy yards more : so that 
