ing towards the country, where many of them remained all night in the fields. Partly from fear, and partly from curiosity, few I believe occupied their homes or their beds until day-break, and many did not return to them till next evening. By fortunate accident, the streets had been almost deserted on the night of the earth- ́quake, and before the shock, at an unusually early hour; and it was equally lucky that the violence of the concussion was in a great measure over before the people had time to crowd into them again; for so very thick was the shower of large stones which were precipitated from the chimney tops, as well as of slates and tiles, which were shaken in great numbers from the roofs of the houses, that, if the streets had not been empty, many deaths and dreadful accidents must have occurred. The thundering noise made by the stones in falling added to the other horrors of the night; many of them were projected completely across to the opposite side of the way. It is rather remarkable, that it was chiefly from the newer houses that the stones were thus thrown; many of the older ones having entirely escaped this dilapidation. It was not, however, until the morning's light that the most decisive proof of the violence of the shock was displayed. No sooner had day dawned than the beautiful spire which is attached to the county jail was observed to have been rent through, at the distance of several feet from the top and the part which was above the fracture appeared twisted round several inches in a direction towards the north-west. This circumstance appears to be very satisfactorily accounted for by a gentleman at Inverness, who remarks, that "the motion of the undulation towards the south-east being communicated to the lower sooner than to the higher parts of the building, those parts of the latter whose cohesion was not sufficiently strong would naturally be left behind, and projected in a north-west direction." It is not impossible, however, that electricity, which, if not sometimes the cause of the sensation of earthquake, at least appears very generally to accompany such convulsions, might have had some share in producing this injury. Notwithstanding its vicinity to Inverness, and although it was agitated during the great earthquake of Lisbon, yet there is no account of Loch Ness having been affected on the late occasion. But it is not unlikely that it may have displayed some commotion, though from the lateness of the hour it would necessarily escape observation. Three gentlemen who at the time of the earthquake hap-. pened to be approaching Inverness from the west, when at a considerable distance from the town, distinctly heard the large bell toll twice. This circum stance was entirely unnoticed by those who were in the streets or houses of the place; people of every description having been too much alarmed, and too much occupied in providing for the safety of themselves and their families, to remark it. It appears to have been admitted by many gentlemen of Inverness, who had resided long in foreign countries, par ticularly ticularly in the West Indies, where such convulsions are very frequent, that they had never before felt so smart a shock. From Tain, Dingwall, Dornoch, Wick, and all the towns to the northward of this, there were similar accounts to those given of Forres, and the other towns already mentioned. I had several very interesting and intelligent letters from Sutherland. One gentleman describes the sensation he and his party felt, to have been just as if they had been all suddenly launched in a boat from dry land to sea. At first he supposed, for a moment, that one side of his chair, and the wall against which he was leaning, had suddenly given way. The hens made a prodigious noise on their roost; and a pointer dog howled for a considerable time afterwards. On looking out immediately afterwards, this gentleman remarked that the night was warm, and quite clear, but rather dark; the atmosphere heavy, and forming one cloud, except on the eastern and south-east horizon, where it had the appearance generally observable before sunrise. Another gentleman, who was on the road near Brora, in a gig, writes me that he was not in the least sensible of any thing, and was quite ignorant of the shock, until he heard of it on reaching home, where he found his family had been alarmed. A lad who was standing on a rock in the middle of the country, at the time of the convulsion, declared that it moved up and down under him like a quaking bog. At Aberdeen, Montrose, Dunkeld, Perth, Pitmain, and the other places intervening between this and the river Tay, the earthquake seems to have been generally felt, with equal violence, making allowance for variety of situation. At Aberdeen, a person who had been present during the earthquake in Lisbon on June 6, 1807, described the late shock as exactly resembling the commencement of it. In many houses the bells were set aringing, and the wires continued to vibrate for some time after their sound had ceased. The houses were shaken to their foundations, and the heaviest articles of furniture were moved. A second, but more slight and partial shock, was felt about half an hour after the first; and this was also remarked by some individuals in almost every quarter where the chief one had been experienced. At Parkhill, the seat of General Gordon, near Aberdeen, a circumstance occurred which deserves particular attention. The sluice-gate of a piece of water, weighing several tons, was raised from its foundation about 12 inches: and some large stones having accidentally rolled underneath it, kept it up in that situation till most of the waters escaped before it could be replaced. Several instruments have been from time to time proposed for measuring the degree of force of the shock of earthquake; but here was one perfectly fortuitous, which, though perhaps it did not mark the utmost extent of its energy, proved that the power of the late one had been at least equal to an elevation of 12 inches. In the neighbourhood of Montrose a very amusing occurrence happened. Two excisemen having lain down, in concealment, on the ground, to watch for an expected party of smugglers, when the shock took place, one of them started up, exclaiming to his comrade, "There they are! for I feel the ground striking under their horses feet." In the town of Montrose, the inhabitants felt their beds move, first in a horizontal direction, and then return to their former situation; after which a tremulous motion was felt, as when a body, after being agitated, settles gradually upon its basis. Some compared it to the slight rolling of a ship at sea. The bells in houses were rung, and the furniture shaken, as in other places, and the greatest alarm prevailed. A vivid flash of lightning was observed to follow after the shock. The article from Perth speaks of two distinct shocks, the second occurring at an interval of a minute after the first. In other respects the effects there appear to have been similar to, and nearly as powerful as, those at Aberdeen and Montrose. At Dunkeld, a young man, who was stepping into bed at the moment of the shock, was nearly thrown down on the floor; and in one house the liquor in the glasses was nearly spilt by the concussion. A small meteor was seen to pass from east to west just about the time of the earthquake. A gentleman who has been for some time on a visit to this neighbourhood, who has resided long in Italy, and who tells of himself that he has always had a kind of luck for meeting with earthquakes, asserts that, whilst sitting at breakfast, about three days be fore the late shock occurred, he distinctly felt a slight concussion; which, from the recollection of what he had experienced abroad, gave him very considerable alarm, but which he did not wish to communicate to his friends at the time. This gentleman was also perfectly sensible of the second and slighter shock, which followed on August 13, at an interval of half an hour after the more decided convulsion. In this family, too, we all of us felt this second concussion. But although we noticed it to each other at the time, yet I then suspected it to be nothing more than the sensation of the first shock, which still remained with us; as one is accustomed to think he feels the motion of the waves of the sea for a good while after he has landed from a ship. There cannot be any doubt, however, of the reality of this second movement of the earth; it having been noticed by some individual or other, and at the same interval of time, in almost every quarter where the more intense shock was experienced. There is one fact which I conceive to be so peculiarly striking, that I cannot allow it to escape notice, having not only been very sensible of it in my own person, but having also learned, by inquiry of others, that the feeling was by no means a solitary one, but remarked pretty generally by a number of individuals. Immediately after the shock of the earthquake commenced, I felt myself assailed by a kind of faintishness, which did not altogether leave me until after I was asleep in bed, about two hours after wards. This sensation was per fectly fectly different from that generally attending the apprehension of immediate danger. Indeed, no such feeling could possibly be present with me; for I no sooner knew it to be an earthquake, than all sense of dread was absorbed in the delight I felt in being so very lucky as to have my curiosity satisfied by the actual experience of so rare a phenomenon, the extent of which I naturally supposed, at the moment, might perhaps be confined to the narrow district around me. I have known several persons, quite incapable of being influenced by fear of any kind, who have remarked a similar sensation in themselves during the time of a thunder-storm. This faintish feeling, on the late occasion, was in some people attended by a very slight degree of sick ness. Perhaps it might not have been altogether without its use to have given in this place a slight and general geological sketch of the various rocks composing the different parts of the extensive range of country throughout which the late earthquake was experienced in the greatest intensity. But if I could even venture to draw more largely on your patience, in order to make such an attempt, I do not feel sufficiently confident in possessing ability or information enough to enable me to do justice to the subject. I may only remark, that every geognostic denomination of country seems to have submitted to the influence of the agitating power: that rocky positions have in general been much shaken, and in some instances (as in that of this very house) more so than those less decidedly of that character. We have hardly any data to enable us to say whether the primitive or the floetz rocks yielded most easily to the vibratory motion. But the alluvial site of the town of Inverness, under which I believe there is also a great deal of peat moss, seems clearly and decidedly to have manifested by far the most violent appearances of convulsion; which, if any information be correct, was even by no means so great on the eminences in the immediate neighbourhood. As we have thus the most prominent example of the power of the earthquake, displayed upon an alluvial deposit; so we have reason to decide, from the body of the evidence, that almost all alluvial positions were in general more violently convulsed than the more stable formations in their close vicinity; although at the same time we find several anomalies militating against such a conclusion. Upon the cause of earthquakes, to find a perfect solution of which has been a matter of difficulty to philosophers of all ages and countries, I do not dare to throw out any new speculation. I am, however, rather inclined to adopt that explanation which assigns it to the rarefaction, and conversion into steam, of large bodies of water, at considerable depths beneath the earth's surface. It is a general remark, in all countries where carthquakes are common, that they are preceded by the fall of copious rains. Such, for example, was the case with that of Lisbon, as well as with those of Calabria. In the domestic instance in question, too, we have had had the same precursor in sufficient abundance; such a rainy summer as the past having been hardly remembered by any one. The rain water, gradually percolating into the bowels of the earth, may be converted into steam, by a combustion, to which a variety of causes may give excitement. Amongst these, the moistening of large beds of pyrites may perhaps be offered as one of the most simple explanations. Our late earthquake, however, may have not improbably had some remote connection with a subterraneous volcanic influence; and an account which appeared from Naples, informing us that, on August 7 last, Vesuvius was again in action, renders this last idea the less unlikely. Although, perhaps, not caused by electricity, it is very evident that this subtle agent was not entirely absent on the late occasion, as may be not only considered apparent from some of the effects produced, but is also proved by the flash of lightning seen to accompany the other phenomena at Montrose. The electric theory of earthquakes has been supported by Dr. Stuke ly, in his papers in vol. xlvi. of the Philosophical Transactions: and the Chevalier Vivenzio supposes the same cause to have operated in producing those of Calabria in 1783. But I cannot conceive electricity to have been the primary agent in producing the shock of August 13 last; otherwise it must have certainly left more unequivocal effects behind it. Having, however, endeavoured in this paper to bring before your readers most of the facts and appearances connected VOL. LVIII. with the late earthquake, an opportunity may perhaps be afforded to you or them, either to strengthen one or other of the old theories, or to offer some new and still more rational explanation of a phenomenon which cannot fail highly to interest the enlightened and reflecting mind, as well as to impress it with the most profound admiration of the power of the Deity. I remain, Sir, Your obedient humble servant, THOMAS LAUDER DICK. An Essay on the Oopas, or Poisontree of Java, by Thomas Horsefield, M. D. (From the Seventh Volume of the Transactions of the Lit. and Phil. Soc. of Java.) I have proposed to myself in the following essay, to offer you a short account of the Oopas of Java. I feel some satisfaction in being able, at a time when every subject relating to this island has acquired a degree of interest, to furnish you with a faithful description of the tree, made by myself on the spot where it grows, and to relate its effects on the animal system by experiments personally instituted and superintended; and I flatter myself that the practical information detailed in the following sheets will refute the falsehoods that have been publi-hed concerning this subject, at the same time that it will remove the uncertainty in which it has been enveloped. The literary and scientific world has in few instances been more grossly and impudently imposed upon than by the account of the 2 P Pohon |