Page:The Philosophy of Earthquakes, Natural and Religious.djvu/86

20 the noiſe, the ſhock, and the terror was greateſt at the churches, whoſe walls and bulk made more reſiſtance than houſes. And generally ſpeaking, the churches throughout this whole extent have very fair, and large towers, and very many remarkable ſpires all of good ſtone, which no doubt quiver’d very much at top, if we could have diſcern’d it. This ſame vibration impreſſed on the water, meeting with the ſolid of the bottom of ſhips, and lighters, gives that thump felt thereon; juſt as in common electrifying, we feel the ſtroke upon the joints of our limbs chiefly. Yet of the millions of ordinary houſes, over which it paſſed, not one fell. A conſideration which ſufficiently points out to us, what fort of a motion this was not, what fort of a motion it was, and whence deriv’d; not a convulſion of the bowels of the earth, but an uniform vibration or undulation of its ſurface, aptly thought like that of a muſical ſtring: or what we put a drinking glaſs into, by robbing one’s finger over the edge; which yet brought to a certain pitch, breaks the glaſs; undoubtedly an electric repulſion of parts. And from this remarkable ſimilarity in the appearance of earthquakes we gather an invincible argument againſt the old opinion of their cauſe; for the tumult of ſubterraneous eruptions can have no poſſible place herein. 7ly,