Earthquake in Dumfries

Abstract

WHILE sitting in my lonely house in a retired but beautiful glen of Dumfriesshire, I was aroused on the evening of Wednesday 16th current, at ten minutes to ten o'clock, by one of the most singular noises ever I had listened to. The tone of it was somewhat like thunder, but it did not rise and fall in pitch. It lasted, perhaps, for twenty seconds, and was accompanied by a slight tremor. At first I thought it was a two-horsed carriage coming, and at a lumbering pace, and then, with some hesitation, I took it for thunder, but next day I found that it was generally recognised as an earthquake. The shaking was very perceptible in some localities. It extended through the parishes of Closeburn, Morton, Penpont, Glencairn, and Tynron, over a length, I am safe to say, of ten miles. Dr. Grierson of Thornhill Museum felt it as a rude shock. In Tynron village there was some alarm, as one family thought it was the wall of the churchyard that had fallen. On December 24, last year, a similar shock was felt in some parts of Upper Nithsdale. Although I have resided for many years in Dumfriesshire, these are the only occasions on which there was any surmise of an earthquake. The local papers have said almost nothing about it, but I am sure this will interest some of your readers.