engendering, Tokens, and Effects of all
Earthquakes in general, particularly applied and
conferred with that most strange and terrible
Worke of the Lord within the Citie of London,"
&c. &c., 4to, London, 1580; and again, "A
true and impartial Account of the strange and
wonderful Earthquake which happened in most
parts of the City of London, 8th September,
1692," on which occasion also a sermon was
preached by a certain Rev. Samuel Dolittle, no
doubt greatly improving the occasion. We
have also, about fifty years later (or about a
century ago), and at intervals ever since,
various accounts of the same nature in different
parts of the country, so that it is by no means
contrary to experience, although not remembered
by many living people, that our very capital
should be invaded by this terrible foe.

The earthquakes that have been alluded to
really deserve notice. The first lasted in London
for one minute, occurring at six o'clock in
the morning of the 6th of April of the year
mentioned; and two less severe shocks were felt in
Kent at nine and eleven A.M. of the same day.
On the 1st of May following, another very
considerable shock was experienced. On the occasion
of the first shock, the great bells at
Westminster and other places were made to sound,
portions of several buildings and very many
chimneys were thrown down, in London; and at
Sandwich and Dover the sea was so much
agitated, that vessels in the harbour were dashed
against one another. The disturbance was felt,
not only throughout England, but in France,
Belgium, and Holland, and even as far as The
Pyrenees. The shock felt in 1692 was also very
violent, lasting two minutes, and was followed,
about three days afterwards, by several more.
All these occurred only a short time after a
series of extremely violent shocks in the West
Indies, during one of which, at Port Royal in
Jamaica, three-fourths of the houses were thrown
down, and three thousand persons perished.

Other violent shocks are recorded as having
been felt in London and its neighbourhood in
the middle of the last century, by which not
only many parts of England, but the countries
on the other side of the Channel, were disturbed.
For several years, from the middle of 1748
until the end of 1755, when the great earthquake
of Lisbon took place, there seem to have been
occasional alarms in various parts of England,
but the principal shocks recorded as occurring
in the neighbourhood of London were on the
night of the 18th and morning of the 19th of
February, 1750. On this occasion there were
several slight shocks during the night, and at
about twenty minutes to six in the morning three
or four were felt in succession in the space of
ten or twelve seconds. They were preceded
by a loud noise, compared by some to thunder,
by others to the roaring of the wind, by others
again to that of a carriage in motion. They
moved in a direction apparently from north-east
to south-west. The noise was heard at one or
two places where no shock was felt. A black
cloud, with continual and confused flashes of
lightning, had been visible before the
earthquake: the flashes ceasing a minute or two before
its commencement. Some chimneys were thrown
down, and houses injured. A girl was thrown
from her bed and her arm was broken. In St.
James's Park and elsewhere the earth seemed
to swell up and to be ready to open, three times.
Dogs howled dismally, fishes threw themselves
out of the water, and a horse that was brought
to a watering-place refused to drink. During
the succeeding two months, similar facts are
recorded as having occurred several times in
various parts of the British Islands.

Now, with these facts staring us in the face
as we examine into the records handed down
by the Royal Society, we are tempted to
inquire whether, on another occasion, the
results might not more resemble the awful
catastrophe by which Lisbon was utterly ruined,
and about a fourth part of the northern
hemisphere shaken. If this happened at Lisbon,
why should it not happen in England? If it
took place a century ago, why, not again, now,
or at some future period? There are certain
statistics from which we can determine, if only
approximatively, the degree of probability that
we may again have in Europe some great
disturbance of this kind. Can we judge where
it is likely to take place, and can we in any way
foretell when it may be looked for?

The prophet of evil who is our authority in
this inquiry, the philosopher whose calculations
we depend upon, and whose views we
propose to put before our readers, is Mr. Mallet,
a mathematician, natural philosopher, and civil
engineer, who, some ten years ago, proposed to
the British Association to collect earthquake
facts, with a view to determine if any generalisations
could be drawn from them. A French
philosopher, M. Perrey, appears to have
entertained the same idea at least ten years before,
and he collected for the purpose of publication
all the information he could find. We have thus
had two independent observers working together
in this direction, and as their results agree, the
conclusions have a greater value than might
otherwise attach to them.

The first thing that strikes us on looking at
the lists and tables obtained is, that there are
actual records at hand, with date and particulars,
of two hundred and thirty-four earthquakes
that have taken place in the British Islands
within the last eight and a half centuries, and
that of these two hundred and thirty-four no less
than one hundred and ten (nearly one half) have
been felt during the present century—during
the lifetime, therefore, of an important part of
the existing population. The apparent increase
is in a great measure explained by the much
more complete accounts obtained since the
existence of periodical publications stating the
news of the day; but as the whole number
recorded in the century ending in 1800 is only
sixty-three against one hundred and ten from
1800 to 1850, we feel a little uneasy, and
already fancy that we are a good deal more
shaky than we had believed possible.