OF THE 22nd OF APRIL, 1884. 29 
of a chair was felt by a person seated on it; time 9*20. Reported 
by Mr. Loyd. 
St. Allans. —Shock felt but slightly, and chiefly by persons in 
bed ; no pictures nor furniture displaced. [Mr. A. E. Gibbs reports : 
“ The earthquake was felt by persons in bed in St. Peter’s Street, 
the Market Place, and Worley Road. In a house in Yerulani 
Road the shock was felt, and at the time a flower-pot was noticed 
to shift slightly from its position. At the Gas Works, although 
the shock was not actually felt by any one, it made itself manifest 
by the rattling (described as ‘ violent ’) of some metal-work over 
the door of the counting-house.”] 
\_Throcking. —A rumbling sound heard at about 9 a.m. (?) imagined 
to be thunder. Reported by the Rev. C. W. Harvey.*'] 
Tring. —Rumbling noise heard at a mill on the Icknield Way, 
near Tring. Reported by the Rev. E. W. Ragg.f 
Ware. —Yery slight shock probably felt. 
I have endeavoured to ascertain how long the shock took to 
travel, and, taking the most trustworthy records as to time, I have 
come to the conclusion that the mean velocity of transmission was 
between 9000 and 10,000 feet per second, or nearly 7000 miles 
an hour, which agrees fairly well with the observations of earth¬ 
quakes taken in Japan and elsewhere. 
* Loc. cit. 
t The following letter from the Rev. F. W. Ragg, of Marsworth Vicarage, in 
Rucks, but just ou the borders of Herts, and two miles north of Tring, appeared 
in ‘ Nature ’ of the 8th of May, 1884 :— 
“ This village (Marsworth) lies partly on the lowest beds of the Chalk, and 
partly on the Gault; it is between N. lat 51° 49' and 51° 50', and W. long; 
0° 40' and 0° 41'. The shock was felt at the church, and at two cottages where 
invalids were in bed. The church is on rising ground at the edge of the chalk 
platform which lies between the Chilterns, some two miles away from them. I 
was on the scaffolding erected for repairs to the church. At a little past nine—it 
could hardly have been later, I think, than 9'15, if so late—I felt the church give 
what seemed a fierce shudder. This seemed to begin on the east, rather to north, 
and travelled westwards nearly. By shudder, I mean that a sort of vibration 
began which almost instantly increased in intensity, reached a climax, and then 
rapidly decreased and died away. It seemed to me to begin slightly north of 
east, because I remember feeling (for what reason I can hardly say) that the cause 
was hidden from me behind the east end of the church. I was on the south side, 
some eighteen feet from the south-east corner. A moment afterwards a whirlwind 
followed, which began, as I find, near the top of the slope north-east of the 
church, and followed the churchyard wall which bends round the churchyard to 
south-west. In a cottage on the junction of the Chalk and Gault (or very near 
the junction), according to the result of inquiries I have made of an invalid there, 
the pictures on a wall lying north-west and south-east moved from and to the 
wall, but seemed also to move along it somewhat, i.e. north-west and south east. 
Flower pots on a table rocked in a direction almost east to west, and a window 
facing the south-east shook; her bed also, lying north-west and south-east, 
waved, and seemed as if giving way. This took place, she says, a little after nine. 
In a cottage on the Gault, where another invalid was lying, a window facing 
south-west rattled, a picture shook on the wall on which it is fixed, and the bed, 
lying south-east and north-west, also waved. This was she thought at nine, but 
the time must have been later. She noticed that the wind was still. No noise 
was heard except the clatter caused by the rattling of the buildings ; but at a mill 
on the Icknield Way, near Tring, lying at nearly lat. 51° 48' and long. 0° 48', a 
rumbling was heard.” 
