Journal of Proceedings.
cxvii
very exceptional conditions, fortunately, in this island. Ever since they
left Colchester they been driving along the track of the great earthquake
of April 22nd last, and this was certainly one of the worst cases
of destruction caused by that earthquake shock. The tower of the
church was very old, and the masonry somewhat rotten, which
no doubt contributed a great deal to its destruction. The eastern battle-
ments had been shaken off and had crashed through the roof of the
nave ; the chancel had been untiled, and the walls rent and cracked in
all directions. He had been engaged for some months in preparing a
Report on the earthquake for the Transactions of their Club ; but as it
was still in an embryonic state, he did not feel called upon to go into
theories at that time, but would confine himself to facts. They were
standing on or about one of the lines or axes of maximum disturbance.
In the villages of Abberton and Peldon, through which they had passed,
there were hardly any chimneys that did not show signs of being
repaired, many of the walls of houses were cracked, and he thought there
was no doubt that about here was one of the axes of the maximum dis-
turbance. He exhibited a map of the earthquake, showing its course
from the promontory at Bradwell to Colchester—a line about ten miles in
length, by five in width, and including an area of structural damage of
fifty square miles, in which most of the houses were damaged in some
way or other. He hoped when his report was fully worked out he should
be able to arrive at some exact conclusion as to the chief axis of disturb-
ance, and he wished to examine very carefully the statements put forward
as to the connection between the area of the destruction and the
geological formation. It had been said on good authority that the
chief amount of damage occurred to buildings on the London Clay, and
that buildings on the Drift Gravels were not so badly injured. That
might be so ; he was not prepared, without further examination, to say
that it was not so. He had with him a geological map of the district,
prepared by Mr. Kinnahan, of the Geological Survey, who went
over the ground, from which it seemed that it was on the London
Clay that most damage was done. Dynamically there was no reason for
doubting that such might be the case, for clay, being coherent and
homogeneous, would, under the influence of an earthquake shock, be
more likely to vibrate as a whole than the looser gravels, in passing
through which the earthquake shock would be broken up, and its energy
lessened. As to the origin of earthquakes, it must be borne in mind
that the old idea that a shock proceeded from a point underneath the
earth's crust must be given up. Earthquakes arose, not from a mere
point, but from a subterranean line or axis of disturbance.
That line or axis, as far as he had at present been able to judge, was,
in the recent earthquake, in the direction north-east and south-west, or
between West Mersea and Wyvenhoe.* Mr. Meldola also said that some
* Vide "Report on East Anglian Earthquake of April 22nd, 1884;" E. F. C.
'Special Memoirs,' vol. i.