Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 7.djvu/73

 KARllIOUAKES IN NKW ENGLAND.

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��land, and on February 5th another. The first shock continued above half an hour. On the same day, at even- ing, another, and did not cease till Julv following. Coffin, i)age 66.

Mr. Brighain, in his Historical Notes. says: "January 26, 1662, three violent shocks were felt in New England ; chimneys were thrown down." Mor- ton, in his Memorial, as ([uoted by Mr. Brigham, says : "February 5th, 1663 (n. s.), at the shutting in of the evening there was a very great earthquake in New England, and the same night another, although something less than the former, and on the seventh an- other, about nine of the clock in the morning."

This earthcjuake, says Mr. Brigham, was severer in Canada than in the plantations of Massachusetts Bay. Clavigero declares, in his History of Mexico, that it overwhelmed a chain of mountains of freestone, more than two hundred miles long, and changed that large tract into a j)lain.

Mr. Brigham's reduction of Charle- voix's account of this earthquake is as follows : " About half past five in the evening, the heavens being very serene, there was suddenly heard a roar like that of a great fire. Immediately the buildings were shaken violently, and doors opened and shut of themselves with a great slamming. Bells rang without being touched, the walls split asunder, while the floors separated and fell down. The fields were raised like precipices, and the mountains seemed to be moving out of their places. .Animals were terrified and uttered strange cries. For nearly half an hour the trembling lasted, a most unusual time, but it began to abate in a ([uarter of an hour after.

" The same evening, about eight o'clock, there was another e(}ually vio- lent shock, and within half an hour two others equally violent. The next day, about three hours from the morn- ing, there was a violent shock, which lasted a long time ; and the next night some counted thirty-two shocks, of which manv were \iolent. Nor did

��these earth(|uakes cease until the July following. New England and New York were shaken, as well as Canada, but in less degree, and the whole ter- ritory convulsed, so far as can be learned ; extended three hundred miles from east to west, and half as many from north to south.

" Sometimes the shocks were sud- den, at others they came on gradually ; some seemed to be vertical, others horizontal. Springs and brooks were dried up or became sulphurous ; and some had their channel so completely altered as hardly to be recognized. Between Tadoussac and Quebec, two mountains were shaken into the St. Lawrence. The course of all these waves, when felt in New England, was from the northwest, and the center of disturbance was not far from the an- cient volcanoes of Montreal. On the shores of Massachusetts Bay houses were shaken so that pewter fell from the shelves, and the tops of many chimneys were broken ; but as many of the latter were of rough stone, they were more easily overthrown."

January 26, 1662, old style, corre- sponds with February 5th, 1663. N. s. This will explain the apparent confu- sion, and renders it extremely probable, if not certain, that the earthquakes mentioned at these two dates are one and the same.

Mr. Brigham is the only authority I can find for the earlhcjuake of No- vember 6, 1662.

March 6, i665,N. s., violent shocks of eartlvjuake were felt at Tadoussac and Malbay, in Canada, according to Salemant.

There was also, in Canada, accord- ing to the same authority, an earth- cjuake on the 25th of October, 1665, at 9.30 p. M., preceded by a noise louder than that of two hundred jjieces of artillery, and '• lasting about the time of a viiserere.''

From October, 1665, to the great earthquake of 1727, I find nothing but this from Mr. Brigham's Historical Notes. " Earthquakes are mentioned in the years 166S. 1669. 1670, and

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