Descriptive Report.
121
noise, as of a heavy waggon, was heard, causing all the
children to look up from their work with wondering faces."
In Henley Road Mr. Frederick Turner records that at about
9.17 the disturbance was simultaneously felt by himself and
family, the house oscillated with a wave-like motion, the
bells were all rung, jugs on pegs and hams suspended from
the ceiling were thrown into oscillation. The following
letter from this locality has already appeared in Mr. Symons's
report:—
" Henley Road, Ipswich.—I presume few persons had the
opportunity of observing the clouds on the morning of April
22nd, just previous to the shock of earthquake, that I had,
so I venture to send you my observations made at the time.
" I was lying in bed with my face towards a large window,
watching the clouds in the north-east part of the sky, and
observed them thus for a quarter of an hour, measuring their
movements by bars of the window panes, and had decided in
my mind that the wind was in the S.E., from the direction
the clouds went, hoping we should have it warmer, when all
at once the clouds appeared to go and pass in every direction,
and mix up together in a remarkable manner. This com-
pletely roused my attention, and I looked at a large chestnut
tree in the park, saw all the leaves moving, saying to myself,
' Whatever are you shuddering for; there is no wind.'
Only the leaves moved, not the tree, which stood on a side
hill facing the south.
"Then came the awful rumbling sound under the bed,
which heaved up. I started upright, saw the north wall of
the room bend in and outward, and the pictures on that
wall flapped. Those on the other walls only shook and
moved, while everything in the room that could jingle did so.
A clock on the north wall did not stop. I saw the small trees
in rows from east to west, in the Arboretum, shaking, not as
if by wind, but as by a hand quickly shaking their stems.
Also a tall plant in a pot in my room shook violently all over.
The bells in the kitchen all jingled, and other things
clattered, but no damage anywhere. My window looks
towards the east, and the north wall is an outside wall. I
made the observations, of the clouds, the leaves shaking, then
the noise, all distinctly, though in quick succession, one after
the other, but in how short a time I can't tell, but the clouds
decidedly were the first to show any strange movement.
" Ellen Biddell."