NOTES ON EARTHQUAKES. 
215 
At Llancilio, tlie seat of Colonel Clifford, M.P., a fissure was 
caused in a wall, and some prints just pasted down were split 
across. Llancilio is not far distant from an example of the 
effects of ancient earthquakes ; for, at Usk, a large dome of 
Upper Silurian rocks is upcast through the surrounding and 
overlying Old Red Sandstone of the district. At Ashfield, 
near Ross, on the Wye, the walls of two unfinished houses were 
partly thrown down ; and at Bishop's Wood, below Ross, a line 
of former faulting and rending of the earth's crust, a house 
standing close on the river was so much heaved and rocked 
that the occupant of a heavy old four-poster bed was nearly 
thrown out. The noise here was as loud as in the neighbour- 
hood of Hereford, for the gentleman who rested in the bed 
supposed that an explosion of gunpowder had taken place in 
a barge on the Wye, and he rushed to the window. The 
following evidence from the Ross neighbourhood of the exter- 
nal phenomena attending the shock, is rather remarkable. I 
received the information from a friend, who is thoroughly to be 
depended on. A man rose unusually early, and was engaged in 
loading a cart with potatoes, which he had promised to deliver 
before his day's work commenced ; when, on a sudden, “ he 
heard a dreadful noise come roaring up," apparently from a 
wood to the westward, and his cart rocked so violently that he 
was nearly thrown out of it. The trees all around him rocked 
violently to and fro, and the rooks arose cawing from the 
wood ; the small birds also twittered, and took wing with 
notes of distress. The thunder-like noise appeared to roll off 
towards the east. 
I might give numerous other instances of the effects of the 
October earthquake in the West of England, but I think 
enough has been said to prove that it was a very different 
affair from the London experiences of “ three little quivers," 
and legs which were asleep and twitched." Here it was a 
severe shock for Great Britain, and confirms our opinion more 
and more that the volcanic doctrine is the true one, whatever 
may be the truth of the existence of a Plutonic nucleus 
in the interior of the planet. There is no doubt, however, 
that there is a good deal in the remark, that the variety of 
sensations, and the degrees of violence, in different localities 
were owing to the variations of geological conditions, and the 
medium of solid rock, or looser strata, which communicated the 
earth- wave from place to place. 
Finally, the question of principal importance is, whether we 
are to expect a renewal of such phenomena from time to time, 
and whether it is possible that volcanic fires and their com- 
panions, paroxysmal and violent earthquakes, may again 
agitate our native land. But this is a question it is impossible 
