The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-19 00:00:00

EARTHQUAKE AT BA.RBADOES.

The following is an extract from a letter received
from a correspondent in Barbadoes:—" Last Satur-
day night (October 20), about a Tarter-past nine
o'clock, I was sitting in my room with a book be-
fore me, when all at once I became conscious of a
very peculiar tremulous motion in the floor and
walls of the room. It was not very much at first
—not more than I have felt here sometimes in a
violent thunderstorm, but there being no thunder
to account for it 'began to think whether it could be
caused by the wind, which was rather high at the
time ; but I soon decided that it could not be that,
and in another moment it became plain what it
was, for the tremulous motion quickly increased,
until it amounted to a most decided rocking and
heaving of the whole building, accompanied by a
violent rattling of the windows. So great was the
motion that I expected every moment that the
chair in which I was sitting would be thrown down.
Fora few minutes I was so bewildered by the
strangeness of the phenomenon as hardly to be able
to collect my ideas sufficiently to realise distinetly
what it was that was taking place, but very soon
the thought flashed across me what it was, and I
exclaimed aloud in consternation and alarm (though
there was no one to hear me), It's an earthquake !'
and at the same moment I jumped up from my seat
and rushed to the window with a vague idea of
seeing whether there was any real danger or not.
A friend's house was just opposite and only a little
way off, and I thought of calling out to ask him if
he felt it, and what was to be done, but I saw by
the appearance of his house that he and all his
family were gone to bed, and then, while I was con-
sidering for a moment what to do next, I per-
ceived that the rocking and heaving had ceased,
and all was still as quiet as usual. No injury had
been done, but I could hardly believe at first that
nothing had been displaced in the building after it
had sustained so great a shock. However, every-
thing appeared firm and safe, so I made myself
easy about it, and settled down to my work
again ; and, strange to say, in about five or ten
minutes afterwards, when I began to think the
matter over, I found myself doubting whether I
had really experienced what I thought I had, and I
almost succeeded in making myself believe that the
whole thing had been a delusion, the result of a
sort of a waking nightmare' or of a temporary
whirling of the brain, and I went so far as to de-
termine that I would say nothing about it the next
morning, unless I heard some one else mention the
subject ; there was no one in the house for me to
speak to at the time, my servant having gone
home. However, the next morning I found that it
was the taik of the whole neighbbourhood.."

THE SHERWOOD KIDNAPPING CASE.—MFBO
Blake, the grandmother of the Sherwoods, the children who
were kidnapped in Gal way some months ago, has died in the
Four Courts' Marshalsea, to which she was committed by
the Court of Queen's Bench for contempt. The children
were last traced to her possession, but to the last she obsti-
nately refused to give any information respecting them.
BURSTING OF A CANNON AT BALL PRACTICE.—A
most fortunate escape happened to the men of the Antrim
Militia this week, while at ball practice at Pembroke
Dock Barracks. They had been making successful firing
at a target, the flagstaff of which they had knocked away,
when one of the guns burst, throwing a large portion of it
into the dockyard adjacent. Only one of the men at the
gun got hurt, and he not seriously, while the workmen in
the dockyard, several of whom saw the mass of iron ap-
proaching, were equally fortunate in eScapipg Injury.