laid proofs without end before the public. One thirteenth of the soil of Ireland, it is calculated, is already held in perpetuity, and this portion is invariably the worst farmed. As a rule, the longer the lease, and the lower the rent, the more villanous is the cultivation. We could quote testimony and examples innumerable from the Devon Commission, Mr. Maguire's Committee, and other official sources, of which these two sentences may be taken as specimens. 'I know a farm' (says one witness) 'on lease for 999 years, and there is not such a badly managed estate round the country, nor one on which the people are so wretched.' Another says: "On the estates let in perpetuity in this Barony, the tenants generally are the poorest in the neighbourhood, have subdivided their farms to the greatest extent, and cultivate them very badly.' What is really wanted would seem to be the precise opposite of fixity of tenure, viz., tenure on the condition of good cultivation and punctual payment.

To sum up the whole matter:-If there is one point made clear by Mr. Trench's book, and by every other reliable source of information relating to Ireland, it is this-that the remedies for Irish distress and discontent must be sought in a thorough knowledge of all the peculiarities of Irish character, and in utterly abjuring the recommendations of abstract thinkers or popular politicians or unqualified empirics, who can see no difference between an Hibernian peasant and a Lothian farmer or a Hindoo ryot, but consider and would treat all three alike, on the plea that all three are cultivators of the soil.

ART. III.-1. On the Dynamics of Earthquakes: Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, 1846. Vol. XXI., Part I. By Robert Mallet, F.R.S.

2. Reports on Earthquake Phenomena, and Catalogues of Earthquakes: Transactions of the British Association, 1850-8.

3. The Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857. 2 vols. Royal 8vo. 1862.

4. On the Theories of Elevation and Earthquakes: Transactions of the British Association, 1847. By William Hopkins, F.R.S. 5. Cosmos. By Baron Alexander Humboldt. Translated by General Sabine. 1848. 2nd Edition.

6. Principles of Geology. By Sir Charles Lyell, Bart., F.R.S. 10th Edition.

FAR

AR from the centres of volcanic violence, these 'fortunate isles' of the West feel from time to time the throb of earth-movement vibrating from other lands, and are touched by

the

the last undulations of the sea which, some thousands of miles away, has leaped up in terrible excitement. Now and then we are startled from repose by a swift and ominous pulse from the pained heart of Nature; but the omen is not for us. from dangers so remote

'the hoarse resounding main,

And walls of rock, protect our native reign.'

1

Secure

It is true that a century ago our great-grandfathers were surprised to find London agitated, the midland counties disturbed, and one high cliff in Yorkshire throwing down its half-separated rocks. And within a few days came the disastrous explanation: a capital city lost on the Tagus, while all the Spanish peninsula was shaken, a scene of ruin among the mountains of Morocco, and mighty walls of water driven across the Atlantic to the shores of the New World. But we were safe in our strong island and our insular opinions.

True that, in searching back through the records of the past, our fathers found many marks of ancient volcanos in our own islands, and proofs of signal earth-fractures. But this caused no alarm. Once, no doubt, the area which now supports the British people had its Phlegræan fields, its Giant's Causeways; but that was in tertiary, or mesozoic, or even earlier times. The whole region had sunk to the long sleep of wearied nature, which had covered up and concealed the wounds inflicted by the struggles of the half-stifled Giant of Fire.

But in these later days, accustomed as we are to the thought that everywhere below the earth's outer crust of rocks there may be in action, or may be rekindled to action, an unsleeping power of disturbance, we, to whom every unusual tide and tremor is a proof of such action, can hardly presume on the enjoyment of perpetual security from the terrors which surround us. While old volcanos revive in the Ægean, while Ætna promptly follows Vesuvius, and the Pacific Ocean, within its circle of fire, is covered by long waves which convey the awful shock from the Andes to New Zealand, and from the burning craters of Hawaii to the Rocky Mountains, we cannot avoid the dread that some point of weakness may be found in our own defences, and that the wall of rocks' may yield which has so long guarded 'our own domain.'

In truth, the early chronicles and the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society contain not a few notices of earthquakes in England, which seem to have been alarming enough. In 974, the whole kingdom; in 1048, Worcester and Derby; in 1076, 1081, 1089, 1099, great part of England felt severe shocks. Vol. 126.—No. 251.

G

In

In 1110, from Shrewsbury to Nottingham was a terrible movement, which laid dry the Trent, and kept it dry for some hours at the last-named place. In 1119, 1133, 1142, Lincoln was a sufferer; in 1158 London was afflicted, and the Thames was laid dry so as to be passed on foot. Again, in 1165, England was shaken; and in 1179 remarkably so, especially at Oxenhall, near Darlington, where the ground belonging to the Bishop of Durham was raised up to a surprising height, so as to match the hills, from 9 A.M. till sunset, when it suddenly fell again, to the consternation of the beholders, who saw a deep cavity in place of a lofty hill. The northern parts of England were again visited in 1185; in 1186 the tremor of a Lombardian earthquake was felt; and in 1199 Somersetshire was shaken and men were thrown prostrate.

In 1246 violent shocks were experienced in different parts of England, especially in Kent, where churches were overthrown and destroyed; in 1247 London was revisited, and many edifices in the Thames Valley were overthrown, to the surprise of the philosophic monks, who did not expect under solid England the tremors which might happen in countries more cavernous beneath.† In 1248 the cathedral of Wells, and many parts of the dioceses of Bath and Wells were much damaged; in 1250 St. Albans and the chalky' Chilterns were shaken and terrified by subterranean noises like thunder. In 1275 churches were overturned.

The years 1298, 1318, and 1382 are recorded in the earthquake annals of England; and it is remarked that a few days after the shock on land ships were greatly distressed by the violent waves of the sea. In 1385, a great earthquake was felt, and was afterwards regarded as a warning of the revolutions which followed in Scotland; a second shock followed in the same year; and in 1426 all 'Great Britain' was made to tremble with the stroke.

But none of these were more remarkable than those which followed, after a long pause, in the sixteenth century. In 1551, on the 25th of May, Reigate, Croydon, and Dorking, in Surrey, were sufferers to the extent of falling pots and cooking apparatus and the upsetting of furniture. In 1571, on the 17th of February, the ground opened all at once at the Wonder,' near Putley, not far from Marcle, in Herefordshire; and a large part of the sloping surface of the hill-twenty-six acres, it is said-descended with the trees and sheepfolds, and continued in motion

* This somewhat extraordinary notice is from the Chronicle of John of Brompton. Matthew Paris has preserved these reflections.

from

from Saturday to Monday, masses of ground being turned round through half a circle in their descent. This was a great landslip, said to have been occasioned by an earthquake. In 1574, on the 26th of February, between five and six in the evening, a great earthquake was felt at York, Worcester, Hereford, Gloucester, and Bristol. Norton Chapel was filled by suppliants kneeling in prayer; they were nearly all overthrown, and fled in terror, thinking the dead were unearthed or the chapel was falling. Part of Ruthin Castle fell down, and the bell of the Town Hall at Denbigh was made to toll twice.*

In 1580, on the 6th of April, at 6 P.M., London and all England were thrown into consternation. The great bell at Westminster sounded the alarm and was followed by others; the students of the Temple started up from table and rushed into the street, knives in hand; a part of the Temple Church fell, and stones dropped from, St. Paul's. Two stones fell in Christ's Church, and crushed two persons, one to an immediate, the other to a lingering death. In rushing out of the church many persons were lamed, and there was a shower of chimneys' in the streets. In London this severe blow lasted one minute; in the eastern parts of Kent three shocks were felt, at 6, at 9, and at 12 o'clock; at Sandwich the occurrence was strongly marked by the violence of the sea, which made ships run foul of each other. At Dover a part of the fortifications fell with the rock which supported it. Part of Saltwood Castle fell; the church bells tolled at Hythe, and the church of Sutton was injured. This earthquake passed through Belgium to Cologne. In the same year, on the 1st of May, the terrors of the people were repeated in Kent, about Ashford, at night, causing many to rise from their beds and go to the churches,-suppliants for the mercy of God. In 1583 a remarkable landslip occurred in the Vale of Blackmore, in Dorset ; and in 1596 another, still more extraordinary, happened at Westerham, in Kent; but these are probably not cases of earthquake violence, for a landslip is often the effect of wet seasons and argillaceous strata.

In 1666 a real earth-shock was observed by a true philosopher, Mr. Boyle, who was then resident near Oxford. It was on the 19th of January (o.s.); not very remarkable at Oxford, or at Mr. Boyle's house on higher ground; but at Brill, still more elevated, it was violent enough to displace carriages.† On Christmas Day (o.s.), 1677, again, October 9th and November 4th, (o.s.), 1678, Staffordshire had its share of these movements— several shocks in different parts of the county.

In 1683 Oxfordshire was revisited by an earthquake which extended over seventy leagues: the longest direction being from south-east to north-west, the shortest from north to south. A sound like distant thunder preceded the shock, which was noticed at many stations, east, west, north, and south of Oxford, as far as Aylesbury, Watlington, Abingdon, Brampton, Burford, Long Hand borough, Kirtlington, and Bletchingdon. In 1690 Bedford had its experience of a double subterranean shock, which frightened the Principal of the College and nearly upset the carriage of Dr. Beaumont.

In 1703 Yorkshire, and in particular Lincoln, Hull, and the flat region on the Humber, were considerably shaken; in 1712 Shropshire; in 1726 Dorsetshire; in 1727 Kent. In 1731, on Sunday, the 10th of October (o.s.), at 4 P.M., Aynhoe, in Northamptonshire, had its windows shaken for a full minute, and the tremor was felt four miles to the south-west, five to the west, one to the east, and one to the north, but not at all to the south. This is the only place in England which can boast of its own earthquake. In 1732, there was an earthquake in Argyllshire. In 1734, the restless force appeared in Sussex, shaking from head to foot persons who lay in bed from east to west, and turning from side to side those who lay from north to south. In 1738 there was an earthquake at Scarborough. The year 1748 was long remembered in Somersetshire on account of the shock which spread from the English Channel to the Severn, and from Exeter to Crewkerne.

In 1750, more considerable movements passed under London and great part of England, and also appeared in Picardy, Normandy, and Brittany; perhaps at the same time, but certainly within a short interval, in the Pyrenees. The first was felt through France, and along the Thames, when chimneys fell, houses were overturned, and ships in the river received severe shocks. The second was chiefly felt in London: chimneys fell, houses were damaged, most mischief happening in the upper parts of houses; the earth was seen to move in St. James's Park and other places; earthenware was broken in the shops, the church-bells tolled, one girl was thrown out of bed and broke her arm; lightning flashes preceded the earthquake; dogs howled, fishes leaped out of the water. The third took place on the 2nd April (o.s.), at 10 P.M., and was felt at Chester, Liverpool, and Manchester, extending 40 miles from south to north, and 70 miles from east to west. The shock lasted two or three seconds. The fourth was centred about Wimborne in Dorsetshire. The fifth extended from Lincoln to Peterborough. The last was experienced October 11th (N.S.),

between