Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1884-11-12
EARTHQUAKES I'm England.


in Great Britain. The direction in |
which the wave of disturbance has
travelled has in every instance been |
found to be from southwest to north
east, and tho region affected has usually |
had its greatest extension In the same
direction. 1t has been suggested that |
the center of disturbance thus indicated !
Is the submarine region between the !
Azores, Teneriffe, and the Cape Verd !
island-a region which has been re-
garded as the principal source Of the
chief European earthquakes. In the
great Lisbon earthquake, for instance,
the wave of disturbance came from this
volcanic region in the western seas.
And II has been held by some of our
ablest vulcanologists that nearly all, il
not all, the regions of disturbance in
Southern Europe communicate with the
region under the Atlantic.
The earliest British earthquake OF
which any record has reached us is that
which, according TO Wendovcr, shook
the whole Of England in 974. Proba.
bly, in those days few scattered reports
of earth throes from places tolerablo far
apart would do duty rs evidence of an
earthquake shaking all England. AS
suredly Wendovcr had not satisfactory
evidence from all parts of England; and
from what we know later earth
quakes it is probable that that of 974
was limited to n much smaller region
than this accountwould seem to suggest.
In the earthquake of 1881 heavy bel
lowing. according TO one .chronicler,
was heard throughout the length and
breadth of England, and in like man
ner the accounts of the earthquake OF
1889 indicate, with similar want of pre-
cision, most probably, disturbance
affecting the whole country-"a mickle
earth-stlrring over all England" The
unscientiic observers of tho day attrib-
uted the late harvest of that year to the
earthquake.
A severe earthquake was felt in the
western and midland parts of England
in ITO. The valley of the river Trent
must have been very violently shaken,
for the river was dried up at Noting
ham, and so remained, according to
the chronicler, 'from morning to the
third hour of the day, insomuch that
MEME walked drye-shodde" through
its channel. This shock may probably
have been due to remote disturbance
of great violence, for it has been OBJ
served that when England has been
slightly shaken by the effects of dis
tant earth-shock the waters in tho
rivers and lakes have often shown the
most marked effects OF the disturbance.
The twelfth and thirteenth centuries
were remarkably prolific in great earth
quakes in the British Isles. Passing
over the widely felt earthquake of 1888,
there was an earthquake of great vio-
lencc in 1l65. TWAS feltin the eastern
counties, and apparently belonged to
the same set of earthquakes as that
which was felt so sharply last April in
Essex. Matthew Paris tells us that in
Ely, Norfolk and Suffolk this earth
quake threw men to the ground and
have fully relieved the pent-up forces
beneath the eastern counties, for only
twenty years later there occurred an
earthquake in which old Lincoln Ca
thedral was thrown down, and much
destruction wrought in Lincolnshire and
neighboring counties. Two years later
another violent earthquake was expert
enced in the eastern parts OF England,
and many strong buildings were thrown
down. 1t seems likely that during the
next ten or twenty years we may have
similar evidence that q single earth
quake is insufficient to relieve the east
ern earthquake region of England In the
years of 1247 and 124S two remarkable
earthquakes occurred, one in the east,
the other in the west of England, as
though mighty subtcrranean oscilla-
ton had slowly taken place, throwing
the line of disturbance over from east
to west. In the former year, according
to Matthew Paris, many buildings on
the banks of the Thames were flung to
the ground. He adds that "a few days
after, the sea became unnaturally calm,
as il the tides had ceased, and SO re-
manned for about three months" But
it is very unlikely that the earthquake
had anything to do with this oceanic
anomaly. In the western earthquake
of 1913 the destruction wrought was
greater than in any modern British
earthquake. The Cathedral of St.
David's was partially destroyed; part
of the tower of Wells Cathedral was
flung down and fell through the roof;
several churches in Somersetshire were
seriously damaged, wide rents being
apparent in the walls.
But tho earthquake of September,
1875, was still more destructive. We
are told by Matthew of Westminster
that the church of st. Michael of the
Hill, outside Glastonbury, was levelled
to the ground by the violence OF the
earthquake. Many otherlarge churches
were destroyed or greatly injured.
Those who recognize or imagine q
connection between the earthquakes in
Great Britain and the movements oc-
curing within the volcanic region OF
Southern Europe remark that during
all the time that England was thus dis
turbed, the region of which Nesuvius is
the principal outlet had been quiescent.
1t is perhaps rather convenient for the
theory of connection between British
earthquakes and the Vesuvian volcanic
region that we may recognize evidence
in favor of the theory whether disturb
ance in one region synchronizes with
disturbances in the other, or, on the
other hand, with time when the other
region is unusually quicscent. Yet II
nllst be admitted that even the appar-
emily contradictory forms of evidences
derived from the quicscence of Vcsuvius
and its fellow-craters on the one hand,
or their unusual activity on the other,
when British earthquakes occur with
exceptional violence, may in reality
point in the same direction. For on
the smaller scale IL certainly has been
observed that within the Vesuvian re-
gion itself, at a time whcn Vesuvius is
at rest, the minor craters of this region
arc often found to be unusually active,
while vet nj times when Vesuvius is in
violent eruptions these same volcanoes
seem exceptionally active too. 1t is as
though when Vcsuvius rests they tried
to do the work which Vesuvius Is neg.
lecting, while, when Vesuvius is very
active, they try to help the greater era
ter by sharing in its labors. 1t may
therefore quite possibly be the case that
distant volcanic regions may show their
kinship rs much by alternating throes
as by simultaneous disturbances.