162 
would be where it was covered with one hundred feet of 
plastic clay and soft sand, at Crumpsall. 
As far as he has been able to learn, the shock appears to 
have been felt in an east and west direction between Hudders- 
field and Manchester, and from Stockport to Burnley along 
the line of the pennine chain, which forms the high land of 
Lancashire and Yorkshire. 
The tract of land lying betwixt the two great dislocations 
of the earth’s crust in the neighbourhood of Manchester, 
running nearly parallel to the pennine fault, namely, those 
of Smedley and Clayton, and the Great Irwell faults, dis- 
placements of the strata to the extent of between three and 
four thousand feet, would lead us to expect that any dis- 
turbance of the earth’s surface would be felt with greater 
intensity between those two great lines of fracture. Now 
Smedley Hall and our President’s residence at Cliff Point 
both lie in this tract, and being placed on or near the solid 
rock, the vibrations would be much more jarring and severe 
as was he believed the case at both places, than where he 
r 
(Mr. B.) felt them at Crumpsall, on a thick cushion of clay 
and sand. 
Mr. Spence stated that he and several members of his 
family also felt the shock on the 15th instant, at his resi- 
dence, Smedley New Hall, and that it was accompanied by 
a loud noise as if a heavy package had fallen on one of the 
chamber floors. 
The following communication from Mr. T. T. Wilkinson, 
F.R.A.S., was read : — 
A very smart shock of an earthquake was felt at Burnley 
on the 15th March, 1869, at about 6h. 8m. p.m. I was 
standing in my room at the time with my face to the S.E., 
and was startled by a rumbling sound behind me. It ap- 
peared to pass from about N.W. towards the S.E., or almost 
exactly in the plane of the magnetic meridian. At first I 
imagined a wall was falling down in the next apartment ; 
