1883.] Earthquakes and Electricity . 705 
In the British Association Report for 1851 is a communi- 
cation by Mr. R. Budge, F.R.G.S., regarding the great 
earthquake which took place in Chili during his residence 
there in that year. After describing the various circum- 
stances of the event, he states that he cannot understand 
earthquake phenomena unless eledtricity be the agent 
(B. A. R. 1851, p. 85). In the same Association’s Report 
for 1852 the well-known Dr. Buist, of Bombay, in a letter 
to Prof. Baden Powell, F.R.S., dated July 24th, 1852, says, 
“ It is now well established that in India, at all events, 
earthquakes are almost always accompanied by furious 
storms of thunder, lightning, and rain ; it is difficult to trace 
the cause of coincidences so remarkable in the commotions 
of the earth and the air ” (B. A. R. 1852, p. 239). Again, 
in this Association’s Report for 1864, the Rev. E. B. Ellmar 
describes a shock that occurred at Lewes, in Sussex, on the 
21st August, 1864, and was preceded by copious showers 
(after three months of drought), accompanied by a great 
wave from N.W. to S.E., and followed by a thunderstorm, 
with vivid lightning, much hail, and two waterspouts. He 
then quotes a letter from Dr. Nicholson, of Tramfield, who 
says that he has frequently experienced shocks in the West 
Indies after a long drought, and that he is inclined to attri- 
bute some of these shocks to electricity as propounded by 
Dr. Stukeley (B. A. R. 1864, Trans. 16). 
In his “ Heat considered as a Mode of Motion ” (1863) 
Prof. John Tyndall, F.R.S., quoting Prof. Dove, of Berlin, 
in regard to the earthquake at Caracas, of March 26th, 
1812, graphically depicts Pliny’s idea of a force imprisoned 
beneath the surface of the earth, and struggling to obtain 
freedom. “ March 26th, 1812, began as a day of extraordi- 
nary heat in Caracas ; the air was clear, and the firmament 
cloudless. It was Green Thursday, and a regiment of troops 
of the line stood under arms in the barracks of the Quarter 
San Carlos ready to join in the procession. The people 
streamed to the churches. A loud subterranean thunder was 
heard, and immediately afterwards followed an earthquake 
shock so violent that the church of Alta Gracia, 150 feet in 
height, borne by pillars 15 feet thick, formed a heap of 
crushed rubbish not more than 6 feet high. In the evening 
the almost full moon looked down with mild lustre upon the 
ruins of the town under which lay the crushed bodies of 
upwards of 10,000 of its inhabitants. But even here there 
was no exit granted to the elastic forces underneath. Finally, 
on April 27th, they succeeded in opening once more the 
crater of Morne Garou, which had been closed for a century ; 
