76 The East Anglian Earthquake.
of mind to check the rush outwards, and none of the pupils
were injured. The clock in the schoolroom was stopped at
9.15 ; pendulums winging N.W. and S.E. ; clock about three
minutes slow. The chimneys at the schoolmaster's house
were thrown towards the N.N.E., and a low brick out-
building was cracked on its eastern face, the fracture running
obliquely across the north corner, at an angle of about 40°,
and bifurcating for about half its length ; the general direc-
tion of the slant of the crack was towards the S., the S.
forked ends being higher than the northern extremity. The
Wesleyan School chimney was also thrown down and the
roof damaged; but here, also, although some 60 children
were in the room, no injury was sustained by them. To the
extreme west of the island very little damage appears to have
been done.
From the main village the road runs westward, skirting
the shore along the top of a low, clay, drift-covered hill,
about 34 feet above the sea level, and sloping somewhat
steeply towards the alluvial foreshore. On the southern edge
of this road a crack ran along the slope for a distance of
about 200 to 300 yards, starting from St. Peter's Well, the
square wooden cistern at the mouth of this well being
situated on the shore above high water, a little to the south-
west of West Mersea Church. The crack in question was
almost obliterated and in parts difficult to trace at all at the
time of our visit, but we were informed that on the day of the
earthquake it was more than two yards in depth and wide
enough to insert the fist. There can be no doubt that this
crack was opened by the earthquake movement, but the term
" fissure " applied to it in some of the early reports led to an
exaggerated estimate of its magnitude on the part of those who
had not visited the place. I was rather disposed to regard it
as a small incipient landslip, which, had the shock been
stronger, might have resulted in the sliding of some portion
of the southern slope of the hill downwards towards the sea,
and this opinion was also shared by Mr. T. V. Holmes. The
water of the well, which usually runs out of the cistern in a
clear and gentle stream, was jerked forcibly out by the shock