10
WILLIAM T. BRIGHAM
1744.
1746.
1755.
slight shock was felt in Boston , 1 bnt it is only referred to as happening about seventeenyears before the great earthquake of 1755.
December 6, 1741, a small earthquake was felt at Boston , Dedham , Walpole,and other towns about eight o’clock in the morning. 2
On Sunday, June 13, 1741, at 10 h 35' A.M., a very noisy earthquake took place, al-though the shock was not very great. The day was bright and hot, and the barometerfell slightly (two lines) in the morning. There had been no rain since the twenty-thirdof May, and the whole month was dry and hot. Much lightning was observed during thelatter part of the month. At the time of the earthquake the barometer, as observed byProfessor Winthrop , stood at 2',).94. 3
On May 16, 1744, a considerable vibration felt at Quebec , Canada . June 3, aslight shock at Cambridge , Massachusetts . December 23, a small earthquake wasfelt about Newbury at noon. 4
February 2, 1746, a shock was felt by some at Boston , between nine and ten inthe evening. A very remarkable aurora borealis was observed a month later. 5
The year of the great Lisbon earthquake was long remembered in New Eng land , and careful accounts were prepared at the time by Professor John Winthrop ,of Cambridge , and published both in this country and in England . 8 The shock which haddestroyed the city of Lisbon , with so many of her inhabitants, was felt from Iceland onthe north to Morocco on the south, from Bohemia to the West Indies . After an interval ofonly eighteen days, and during this time slight shocks had been felt in Europe , as if thevibration of the earth’s crust still continued from the first great impulse, New England and the neighboring parts of America were shaken. On Tuesday, November 18, 1755, at4 h IT 35", 7 after a perfectly calm night, with the moon, which was near (thirty-six hours)the full, shining brightly, the shock came. Like the other earthquakes of New England , thisbegan with a roaring noise from the northwest, like distant thunder. A man who was on theroad at the time, heard the noise and recognized its nature as it grew louder, and in abouta minute he felt the shock, which resembled a long rolling sea; and the swell was so greatthat he was obliged to run and catch hold of something to prevent being thrown down.The tops of two trees near him, one twenty-five and the other thirty feet high, waved, hethought, ten feet. This motion was repeated, and then came a smaller one, and it was sup-.posed that the shock was passed. “But instantly,” Winthrop says, “without a moment’sintermission, the shock came on with redoubled noise and violence, though the species ofit was altered to a tremor, or quick horizontal vibratory motion, with sudden jerks andwrenches. The bed on which I lay was now tossed from side to side; the whole housewas prodigiously agitated; the windows rattled, the beams cracked, as if all would pres-ently be shaken to pieces. When this had continued about two minutes it began to abate,and gradually kept decreasing, as if it would soon be over; however, before it had quiteceased, there was a little revival of the trembling and noise,, though no ways comparableto what had been before, but this presently decreased, till all, by degrees, became still