General Characters of the Disturbance. 21
own, such as Suffolk and Cambridge, were especially required.
Seismological observations come fairly within the scope
of, and could be most appropriately undertaken by, local
scientific societies, to whom I may take the present oppor-
tunity of pointing out the necessity and importance of
systematic work in this field. Scarcely a month passes without
some part of Britain being shaken by a seismic disturbance,
and there are certain stations in this country where per-
manent instruments might be set up with considerable ad-
vantage to the cause of science.6
III. General Characters of the Disturbance.
The present earthquake having been, as already pointed
out, the most serious which has shaken our country for over
four centuries, it is interesting to make a comparison between
the completeness of the records and those earlier accounts of
earthquakes which have been handed down from the times
when such means of communication as railways, electric
telegraphs and daily newspapers were unknown. The shock
was doubtless felt in many districts from which no records
have been received, but even with these deficiencies the
number of notices and the general amount of detail given is
most instructive, as furnishing a comparative estimate of the
increase both in the number and keenness of the observers,
as well as in the means of intercommunication in modern
times. The same fact is brought out by considering the
reports from the large towns in comparison with those from
6 Since writing the above, a paper on " Earthquakes and Subsidences
in Norfolk," by Horace B. Woodward, P.G.S., has been published in
vol. iii. of the ' Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists'
Society.' In July, 1884, Mr. Edward Parfitt read a paper on "Earth-
quakes in Devonshire," which appears in the ' Transactions of the
Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and
Art,' vol. xvi., pp. 641—661. It gives great satisfaction to know also
that instruments are to be established at the Ben Nevis Observatory,
under the able superintendence of Prof. J. A. Ewing. [A short paper on
the Essex Earthquake by Mr. G. H. Kinahan, read before the Royal
Dublin Society on June 16th, 1884, has been published since the fore-
going note was written. Proc. Boy. Dub. Soc. 1884, p. 318.]