In respect to earthquakes, our British cousins have been even more fortunate than ourselves. A cursory glance at British geology shows that at a remote age in the past, volcanic action was frequent and violent; but the whole region has long buried or healed the wounds inflicted upon the face of nature by the petulant giants of fire. Now and then there is a premonitory tremor; but the warning seems not to be for the grandchildren of the Druids; and the latter have been lulled to a sense of almost absolute security.
Yet at some periods of the past they have been seriously disturbed, if we may credit the old chroniclers; but their records are so brief, and at times so conflicting, that it is not always easy to determine the extent of the disaster. And it must be remembered that in the dark and middle ages the mass of the people knew absolutely nothing of affairs not in their own immediate neighborhood.
Perhaps the most striking feature of British earthquakes is the fact that, like the shocks in the Vesuvian neighborhood, the area they disturb is very small; it may be, however, that incompleteness of reports is responsible for this apparent peculiarity. Up to the last century but one general shock is recorded; this being the first of which there is definite mention, occurring in 974 A. D. Five others are recorded in the next century, all local.
Perhaps the most violent of the earlier earthquakes was the one which in 1110 shook the region between Shrewsbury and Nottingham, tumbling down many houses and injuring many people. At Nottingham the bed of the river Trent was laid dry and remained so some hours. Probably a large fissure opened temporarily in the channel, allowing the water to escape into subterranean cavities. Three other earthquakes occurred in the Lincolnshire fens in the next thirty-two years, doing considerable damage.
In 1158 mention is made of a most extraordinary earthquake which shook London and vicinity, destroying much property, injuring several people, and causing the Thames to become so low as to be passed on foot. Seven years later there was a general tremor observed throughout all England.
John of Brompton relates a remarkable circumstance in connection with an earthquake in 1179. The ground belonging to the bishop of Durham, at Oxenhall near Darlington, was raised suddenly to a level with the adjacent hills, remaining so from 9 A.M. till sunset, when it fell again, leaving a deep cavity in place of a hill. Three other earthquakes occurred ere the close of the century; the last one, in Somersetshire in 1199, being violent enough to throw men off their feet.
Forty-seven years passed without any further experience of the sort, when a series of severe shocks, especially violent in Kent, overthrew a number of churches and other buildings of the more pretentious sort; and the same thing happened next year, affecting especially London and the Thames Valley. Again, in the year after, Bath and Wells suffered considerably; and two years later St. Albans was shaken.
Of other earthquakes in the next century no especial mention need be made, save of one of unusual violence in 1385. A revolution in Scotland followed, and the superstitious populace, looking backward, concluded that the earthquake had been meant as a warning which they had not been able to interpret. A second shock which
