Miscellaneous Concluding Observations. 201
short that it would be impossible to follow the course of the
destruction along a village, especially when, as in all earth-
quakes, the event takes the inhabitants by surprise—in other
words, the velocity of transmission is generally too great for
the successive effects of the disturbance upon a number of
houses huddled together to be discriminated. With a velocity
of 9000 feet per second a village a mile long would be tra-
versed in a little more than half a second, so that even with
a clear view of this extent the observer would have to become
impressed with the order in which the damage occurred
within this interval. Such observations as those made at
Wivenhoe (p. 91), in which case the observers were in the
village itself and probably commanded an extent of view of
much less than a mile, the destruction within their area of
observation probably occurring in less than half a second,
may therefore be disregarded. Where a long stretch of open
country is under view, it is possible that the effects upon a
distant village might be witnessed before the observer himself
felt the shock, and the observations respecting the direction
at Langenhoe (Mr. Parkinson, p. 66, and Mr. G. J. Symons,
p. 71) appear to be worthy of further examination from this
point of view.
According to Mr. Parkinson's statement, which need not
be here repeated (see p. 66), the disturbance travelled from
N.E. to S.W., the shock being felt on Fingringhoe Hill before
Langenhoe Church was wrecked. According to the observa-
tion noted by Mr. Symons (p. 71), Langenhoe Church was
wrecked before Peldon Mill was damaged, and this supports
the previous observation that the disturbance travelled
approximately from N.E. to S.W. If Mr. Symons's in-
formant was correct in his observation, there is no escape
from the conclusion that the wave actually travelled from the
N.E., i.e., from the neighbourhood of Wivenhoe, and this
would therefore be the reflected wave, for the existence of which
the evidence has already been given (pp. 91, 92, and 170;
also Map, Plate IV.). If we admit, in accordance with this
evidence, that Fingringhoe and Langenhoe were traversed by
the reflected wave, the fact that Fingringhoe did not exhibit