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having lain down, in concealment, on the ground, to watch for an expected party of smugglers, when the shock took place, one of them started up, exclaiming to his comrade, "There they are! for I feel the ground striking under their horses feet." In the town of Montrose, the inhabitants felt their beds move, first in a horizontal direction, and then return to their former situation; after which a tremulous motion was felt, as when a body, after being agitated, settles gradually upon its basis. Some compared it to the slight rolling of a ship at sea. The bells in houses were rung, and the furniture shaken, as in other places, and the greatest alarm prevailed. A vivid flash of lightning was observed to follow after the shock.

The article from Perth speaks of two distinct shocks, the second occurring at an interval of a mi-nute after the first. In other respects the effects there appear to have been similar to, and nearly as powerful as, those at Aberdeen and Montrose. At Dunkeld, a young man, who was stepping into bed at the moment of the shock, was nearly thrown down on the floor and in one house the liquor in the glasses was nearly spilt by the concussion. A small meteor was seen to pass from east to west just about the time of the earthquake.

A gentleman who has been for some time on a visit to this neighbourhood, who has resided long in Italy, and who tells of himself that he has always had a kind, of luck for meeting with earthquakes, asserts that, whilst sitting at breakfast, about three days be

fore the late shock occurred, he distinctly felt a slight concussion; which, from the recollection of what he had experienced abroad, gave him very considerable alarm, but which he did not wish to communicate to his friends at the time. This gentleman was also perfectly sensible of the second and slighter shock, which followed on August 13, at an interval of half an hour after the more decided convulsion. In this family, too, we all of us felt this second concussion. But although we noticed it to each other at the time, yet I then suspected it to be nothing more than the sensation of the first shock, which still remained with us; as one is accustomed to think he feels the motion of the waves of the sea for a good while after he has landed from a ship. There cannot be any doubt, however, of the reality of this second movement of the earth; it having been noticed by some individual or other, and at the same interval of time, in almost every quarter where the more intense shock was experienced.

There is one fact which I conceive to be so peculiarly striking, that I cannot allow it to escape notice, having not only been very sensible of it in my own person, but having also learned, by inquiry of others, that the feeling was by no means a solitary one, but remarked pretty generally by a number of individuals. Immediately after the shock of the earthquake commenced, I felt myself assailed by a kind of faintishness, which did not altogether leave me until after I was asleep in bed, about two hours afterwards. This sensation was per

fectly

fectly different from that generally attending the apprehension of immediate danger. Indeed, no such feeling could possibly be present with me; for I no sooner knew it to be an earthquake, than ali sense of dread was absorbed in the delight I felt in being so very lucky as to have my curiosity satisfied by the actual experience of so rare a phenomenon, the extent of which I naturally supposed, at the moment, might perhaps be confined to the narrow district around me. I have known several persons, quite incapable of being influenced by fear of any kind, who have remarked a similar sensation in themselves during the time of a thunder-storm. This faintish feeling, on the late occasion, was in some people attended by a very slight degree of sick

ness.

Perhaps it might not have been altogether without its use to have given in this place a slight and general geological sketch of the various rocks composing the different parts of the extensive range of country throughout which the late earthquake was experienced in the greatest intensity. But if I could even venture to draw more largely on your patience, in order to make such an attempt, I do not feel sufficiently confident in possessing ability or information enough to enable me to do justice to the subject. I may only remark, that every geognostic denomination of country seems to have submitted to the influence of the agitating power: that rocky positions have in general been much shaken, and in some instances (as in that of this very house) more so than those less

decidedly of that character. We have hardly any data to enable us to say whether the primitive or the floetz rocks yielded most easily to the vibratory motion. But the alluvial site of the town of Inverness, under which I believe there is also a great deal of peat moss, seems clearly and decidedly to have manifested by far the most violent appearances of convulsion; which, if my information be correct, was even by no means so great on the eminences in the immediate neighbourhood. As we have thus the most prominent example of the power of the earthquake, displayed upon an alluvial deposit; so we have reason to decide, from the body of the evidence, that almost all alluvial positions were in general more violently convulsed than the more stable formations in their close vicinity; although at the same time we find several anomalies militating against such a conclusion.

Upon the cause of earthquakes, to find a perfect solution of which has been a matter of difficulty to philosophers of all ages and countries, I do not dare to throw out any new speculation. I am, however, rather inclined to adopt that explanation which assigns it to the rarefaction, and conversion into steam, of large bodies of water, at considerable depths beneath the earth's surface. It is a general remark, in all countries where earthquakes are common, that they are preceded by the fall of copious rains. Such, for example, was the case with that of Lisbon, as well as with those of Calabria. In the domestic instance in question, too, we have had

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had the same precursor in sufficient abundance; such a rainy summer as the past having been hardly remembered by any one. The rain water, gradually percolating into the bowels of the earth, may be converted into steam, by a combustion, to which a variety of causes may give excitement. Amongst these, the moistening of large beds of pyrites may perhaps be offered as one of the most simple explanations. · Our late earthquake, however, may have not improbably had some remote connection with a subterraneous volcanic influence; and an account which appeared from Naples, informing us that, on August 7 last, Vesuvius was again in action, renders this last idea the less unlikely. Although, perhaps, not caused by electricity, it is very evident that this subtle agent was not entirely absent on the late occasion, as may be not only considered apparent from some of the effects produced, but is also proved by the flash of lightning seen to accompany the other phenomena at Montrose. The electric theory of earthquakes has been supported by Dr. Stuke ly, in his papers in vol. xlvi. of the Philosophical Transactions: and the Chevalier Vivenzio supposes the same cause to have operated in producing those of Calabria in 1783. But I cannot conceive electricity to have been the primary agent in producing the shock of August 13 last; otherwise it must have certainly left more unequivocal effects behind it. Having, however, endeavoured in this paper to bring before your readers most of the facts and appearances connected VOL. LVIII.

with the late earthquake, an opportunity may perhaps be afforded to you or them, either to strengthen one or other of the old theories, or to offer some new and still more rational explanation of a phenomenon which cannot fail highly to interest the enlightened and reflecting mind, as well as to impress it with the most profound admiration of the power of the Deity.

I remain, Sir,
Your obedient humble servant,

THOMAS LAUDER DICK.

An Essay on the Oopas, or Poisontree of Java, by Thomas Horsefield, M. D.

(From the Seventh Volume of the Transactions of the Lit. and Phil. Soc. of Java.)

I have proposed to myself in the following essay, to offer you a short account of the Oopas of Java.

I feel some satisfaction in being able, at a time when every subject relating to this island has acquired a degree of interest, to furnish you with a faithful description of the tree, made by myself on the spot where it grows, and to relate its effects on the animal system by experiments personally instituted and superintended; and I flatter myself that the practical information detailed in the following sheets will refute the falsehoods that have been published concerning this subject, at the same time that it will remove the uncertainty in which it has been enveloped.

The literary and scientific world has in few instances been more grossly, and impudently imposed upon than by the account of the 2 P

Pohon

Pohon Oopas, published in Holland about the year 1780. The history and origin of this celebrated forgery still remains a mystery. Foersch, who put his name to the publication, certainly was (according to information I have received from creditable persons who have long resided on the island) a surgeon in the Dutch East India Company's service, about the time the account of the Oopas appeared.* It would be in some degree interesting to become acquainted with his character. I have been led to suppose that his literary abilities were as mean, as his contempt of truth

was consummate.

Having hastily picked up some vague information concerning the Oopas, he carried it to Europe, where his notes were arranged, doubtlessly by a different hand, in such a form, as by their plausibility and appearance of truth, to be generally credited.

It is in no small degree surprising that so palpable a falsehood should have been asserted with so much boldness and have remained so long without refutation or that a subject of a nature so curious and so easily investigated, relating to its principal colony, should not have been inquired into and corrected by the naturalists of the mothercountry.

To a person in any degree acquainted with the geography of the island, with the manners of the princes of Java, and their re

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lation to the Dutch government at that period, or with its internal history during the last fifty years, the first glance at the account of Foersch must have evinced its falsity and misrepresentation. Long after it had been promulgated, and published in the different public journals in most of the languages of Europe, a statement of facts, amounting to a refutation of this account, was published in one of the volumes of the Transactions of the Batavian Society, or in one of its prefatory addresses. But not having the work at hand, I cannot with certainty refer to it, nor shall I enter into a regular examination and refutation of the publication of Foersch, which is too contemptible to merit such attention.

But though the account just mentioned, in so far as relates to the situation of the Poison Tree, to its effects on the surrounding country, and to the application said to have been made of the Oopas on criminals in different parts of the island, as well as the description of the poisonous substance itself, and its mode of collection, has been demonstrated to be an extravagant forgery,-the existence of a tree on Java, from whose sap a poison is prepared, equal in fatality, when thrown into the circulation, to the strongest animal poisons hitherto known, is a fact, which it, is at present my object to establish and to illustrate.

The tree which produces this poison is called Antshar, and grows in the eastern extremity of the island. Before I proceed to the description of it and of the effects produced

produced by its poison, I must premise a few remarks on the history of its more accurate investigation, and on the circumstances which have lately contributed to bring a faithful account of this subject before the public.

At the time I was prosecuting my inquiries into the botany and natural history of the island on behalf of the Dutch government, M. Leschenault de La Tour, a French naturalist, was making a private collection of objects of natural history for the governor of the north-east coast of Java. He shortly preceded me in my visit to the eastern districts of the island, and while I was on my route from Sourabaya in that direction, I received from him a communication containing an account of the poison-tree as he found it in the province of Blambangan. I am induced to make this statement, in order to concede, as far as regards myself, to Mr. Leschenault de La Tour, in the fullest manner, the priority of observing the Oopas of Java. I do this to prevent any reflection, in case a claim to the discovery should be made at a future period: but I must be permitted to add in justice to the series of inquiries which engaged me and the manner in which they were carried on, that the knowledge of the existence of this tree was by no means uncommon or secret in the district of Blambangan, in the environs of Banyoo-wangee; that the commandant of the place, a man of some curiosity and inquiry, was acquainted with it, and that it could not (in all probability) have escaped the notice of a person, who made the vegetable productions an object of particular

inquiry, and noted with minute attention every thing that related to their history and operation.

It is in fact more surprizing that a subject of so much notoriety in the district of Blambangan, and of so great celebrity and misrepresentation in every other part of the world, should so long have remained unexplored, than that it should finally have been noticed and described; and since my visit to that province I have more than once remarked the coincidence which led two persons of nations different from each other, and from that which has been long in possession of the island, who commenced their inquiries without any previous communication and with different objects in view, within the period of about six months, to visit and examine the Oopas Tree of Java.

The work of Rumphius contains a long account of the Oopas, under the denomination of Arbor Toxicaria; the tree does not grow in Amboyna, and his description was made from the information he obtained from Macassar.

His figure was drawn from a branch of that which was called the male tree, sent to him from the same place, and establishing the identity of the poison-tree of Macassar and the other Eastern Islands with the Antshar of Java.

The account of this author is too extensive to be abridged in this place. It concentrates all that has till lately been published on this subject; but the relation is mixed with many assertions and remarks of a fabulous nature, and it is highly probable that it was consulted in the fabrication of Foersch's story. It is, how.

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