Page:The Philosophy of Earthquakes, Natural and Religious.djvu/33

 a relation of a waterman, that felt it in his boat upon the river; he thought it like a great thump at the bottom of the boat. And so the ships at sea fancy, they strike upon a rock.

This makes us apprehend, the reason of the fishes leaping up out of the canal in Southwark, of which we had an account. So in that of Oxford, 1683, one fishing in the Charwell felt his boat tremble under him, and the lesser fishes seem'd affrighted by an unusual skipping. That electricity is the cause sought for, seems deducible from this consideration. Several writers on earthquakes assimilate these vibrations of the earth to those of a musical firing. Experiments have shown, that fishes in water may be killed by the particular tone of a musical firing; and 'tis known, that electricity will kill animals. They assuredly felt the vibratory motion in the water, which they were absolutely strangers to before. No doubt it made them sick, as those of weak nerves on land. And this circumstance alone precludes any suspicion of subterraneous fires under the ocean. Or, if we were to admit of it, would the boiling of the water exhibit any appearance, like what we are speaking of, either to the water, of to the ship?

Mr. Flamsted likewise concurs in our eighth position, "That many people found selves