his is an extract from a Victorian newspaper article published in October 1863. A minor earthquak ad been felt in some parts of Great Britain. the Peopla We have had an Earthquake. The men of science all tell us that we have every right to expect earthquakes. This country lies on the great volcanic belt. There runs under us a in the huge crack in the earth's crust, - who knows how deep or how wide? A few flimsy strata have fallen in and now, who knows what enormous voids, what huge quantities of imprisoned gas, what seas of molten metal, there may be only a few miles below this far 5 surface? un e trates the hopelessness of the peopesthing they have no A en The scientists tell us that there are probably many earthquakes which we do not feel. Bu if a small earthquake, even an imperceptible one, why not an earthquake to destroy a metropolis? a possibility of miring a mhajes cla Sa 19th Century non-fiction qual 10 5 Glos stra met hars But, the earth-wave has been faint, and only a feeble echo of some distant shock, for it was not everywhere, nor was it everybody that was waked by the earthquake of Tuesday October 6. More than half the nation has to accept the word of the rest. Yet many felt it that will never forget the feeling; and many even heard it that will carry the "awful" sound in the ear to their dying day. In some places it even did damage. It upset furniture and broke crockery. It displaced bricks, and even revealed a crack in a wall. We should not b surprised to hear of more serious damage. But if this much, why not more? BRITANNIA'S³ fabled rock has been shaken from its basis. Be it only an inch or two, the ocean throne has been tilted up. Throughout the Midland counties, the earthquake appears to have been felt the most. At Birmingham walls were seen to move, and people rose from their beds to see what damage had been done. At Edgbaston successive shocks were plainly felt, houses were shaken to their foundations, "a dreadful rattle" was rather felt than heard, and people woke one another to ask the meaning. Everything around was violently agitated. The houses cracked and groaned as if the timbers had been strained. The policemen on duty saw the walls vibrate, heard everything rattle abou them, and were witnesses to the universal terror of the roused sleepers. In London, we are situated on a deep bed of clay, where our houses are well built, and where we are so accustomed to noises, shocks, and tremors that we are almost startled to find it calm and quiet. Noises from vast warehouses along the river banks, bathed by the muddy and dull water of the great river, while trains rush past at full speed or rumble underground uttering horrible cries and vomiting waves of smoke. London: where men work in darkness, scarcely seeing their own hands and not knowing the meaning of their labour. London: a rainy, colossal city smelling of molten metal and of soot, ceaselessly streaming and smoking in the night fog. Fog which persists and assumes different hues sometimes ashen - sometimes black. With the lighting of the fires, it soon becomes yellow and pungent, irritating the throat and eyes. Here, on this day, a large proportion of us felt a sort of shock and shiver, and the feelin of being upheaved; but very few of us could trust our own sensations, and be sure it w something out of the usual course. Who can say what strange trial of shaking or upheaving, sinking, dividing, or drying u may await us? We know by science these isles have gone through many a strange metamorphosis, and science cannot assure us that there are none more to come.
