90 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
Of the ejection of water from vents we have a good account from 
people who witnessed the earthquake of 1811 in the region of New 
Madrid. I obtained m 1873 accounts from eye witnesses which 
seemed to indicate that such longitudinal fissures were suddenly 
opened and closed, the closing beijig attended by the ejection of 
water to a height of the tree tops. This phenomenon, though inter¬ 
esting, has no importance in this inquiry for the reason that the sud¬ 
den bringing together of the walls of any fissure which penetrated 
into water-bearing rocks would lead to the expulsion of the water 
which had entered the cavity. It is otherwise with the cylindrical 
openings which give passage to briefly enduring fountain-like springs 
that are produced during earthquake shocks. In them we find a 
series of facts of striking interest. 
Assembling the accounts of these earthquake fountains, as we may 
term them, we find that in their distribution they are limited to 
those fields where the shock affects thick accumulations of uncon¬ 
solidated rocks of no considerable geologic age. Thus in the 
earthquake of Lisbon in 1755, though the movement was of great 
intensity, there is no account of any such fountains, while in that of 
Charleston, S. C., in 1884, though the disturbance was of a much 
less considerable nature, they were, as we shall afterwards note, 
formed in an abundant manner. An enquiry as to the distribution 
of these little vents in the Italian peninsula showed me that they had 
in various earthquakes occurred only when the conditions were such 
as are above noted. 
On this continent I have been able to find that earthquake foun¬ 
tains have been formed during three periods of shock. There is an 
ill verified report that in the earthquake of 1727 which curiously 
affected the region about Newbury, Mass., some of the marshes 
near the village of that name were the seat of such jets. In the 
New Madrid earthquake of 1811-13 the cavities formed by these 
fountains, many of them on a large scale, were to be plentifully 
found fifty years afterwards. I was shown several of these shallow 
pits near Hickman, Ivy., which were said to have been produced in 
this manner. They indicate that some of the basins which were 
thus produced had an original width of seventy-five feet or more. 
In the Charleston earthquake the fountains were formed in large 
numbers; there were probably many thousand of them created, but 
probably none so large as the greater of those which were produced 
at the time of the New Madrid shocks. It is to be observed that in 
