The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-10-24

time as an historical faot although many
persons insisted that the motion they had
felt could be attributed to nothing else. Last
Thursday morning, at time variously esti-
mated from III to IL J. similar phenome-
non was experienced. Persons in different
parts of the city, and more particularly in
the neighborhood of Centre street, felt |
shocks described as lasting from three to |
fifteen seconds. Chandeliers were violently |
shaken chairs and desks were thrown down. |
People in many places rushed terror
stricken into the street. There were stam-
pedes from some school-houses, the children
running forth in fright, and some of their
number being thrown down and trampled
under foot. In some instances articles as
heavy as sewing -machiness were upset. and
in one the leg of piano is said to have been
fractured. Many clocks stopped. Rocking
chairs flew swiftly back and forth, and orna
ments fell from tables and mantels. The
large bell of the post office oscillated and
finally the clapper struck the rim of the bell
for the first time without human agency.
case is reported in which fruit-stand was
dashed to the ground, and another of lady
being similarly treated as she was about to
enter car. Other eases are mentioned of
pedestrians being thrust into involuntary
collision. Buildings were shaken slightly
from side to side, and in
few instances-the most notable being at
streets-masonry was cracked and founda-
tions unsettled. Women tainted in different
parts of the town, and one in her terror
jumped out of window, and sustained some
injury. Shot-towers and other tall structures
are said to have swayed perceptibly in vari-
GUS localities, creating much CONSERVATION.
Numbers of people were made quite ill, as if
from sea-sickness, the nausea lasting for an
hour or more after the shocks. 1t will thus
hat yuh hoy OF
tached to the phenomenon of the 25th of
June, there can be none whatever respecting
that of October 20.
During the afternoon and evening tele-
graphic dispatches were received from many
quarters, which would have set the matter at
rest had there existed any question regarding
it. From Quebec, Montreal, and st. Catha-
rine's in Canada, to Philadelphia, Scranton
and Titusville, in Pennsylvania; from Port
land and Bangor, on the east, to Cleveland
and Cincinnati on the west, corroborative
testimony poured in, showing that the con-
vulsion, if not very terrible in effect had
been very wide i'll range, and certainly quite
unprecedented in the annals of the
regions it visited. The accounts from all
these places, as we'll as from Boston, Albany,
Providence and other towns throughout
New York and New England, correspond
with what was observed in the metropolis.
No lives we're lost, and little serious damage
was done, but the inhabitants were much
alarmed, and concurred in the opinion that
no such visitationhad before been observed
in their section. So far as we are at present
advised, the earthquake extended from the
Atlantic Ocean to the great lakes east and
west, and from the st. Lawrence to the Sus-
quehanna north and south. The personal
experiences reported from various points are
curiously similar. People thought themselves
attacked by sudden vertigo or neuralgia, and
some elderly persons imagined they were
to be afflicted with a stroke of paralysis.
| AS regards time, most of the accounts
| from places on our own meridian are
| nearly in agreement. comparison,
however, of the hours assigned at spots diff
fering most widely in longitude leads to def
| mite conclusions as to the earthquakes direc-
ton. Thus, the dispatches from Detroit and
| Cleveland fix the moment at IL clock, aud
that from Cincinnati says 10l. The Boston
account declares the commissions to have oc-
CURED at precisely IL '26. At Portland the
time is stated at II '35 Hartford has it at
II 21 and Providence at 1927. The move
ment, or wave, therefore, passed, generally
| speaking, from the southwest to the north
east, and took something like half an hour
in its transit
| There seems to be some difference of
| opinion respecting former earthquakes in the
regions now so visited. 1t is said that slight
| shocks have been felt in New York before, on
Sept. ., 1913, and March 1S, 1853; at Buffalo,
Oct. %, 1857, and throughout New England,
Oct. %, 1869. Besides these, there is the
doubtful earthquake of the 25th of June,
| 1870, already mentioned. 1t is also affirmed
that records exist of two earthquakes in Bos-
ton, and presumably in its vicinity, which oc-
Cured Nov. 1S, 1755, and March 12 1761.
That much graver disturbances of this ma.
ture have been felt in remoter times in this
region is certain. There are in various parts
of the country geological evidences of the
fact. The great chasm that runs from the
western base of the Shawangunk Mountain,
at Ellenville, in Ulster county, New
York, for nearly 2000 yards
to the top, is remarkable illustra
ton. 1t is not difficult to find, in truth
abundant evidence that the popular theory
which confines earthquakes to southerly OF
tropical regions is a mistaken one. The in
stances cited in these columns on the Sd o
July last are sufficiently conclusive on this
point. Both England (the last time in 1860
and Ireland have been repeatedly so visited
In 1880 part of st. Paul's and the Temple
churches were leyeled by an earthquake il
London The devastation in the japanese
Islands in 1S54-5, and in Chill In 1868, is re
membered by all. These casualties, we'll ou
of the tropics, and in the first instance, a
places much further toward the pole thar
ourselves, clearly show that there is only com
parative immunity from earthquakes in the
temperate zones. 1t is true that in our north
ern homes we have no chronicles of awful
catastrophes, like those of Lisbon, in 1855, o.
Pekin, in 1862 and 1881, but if no such thinI
has heretofore befallen in the historic period
there is no certainty that it will not happeI
at all. On the contrary, the doctrine O