A NEW KIND OF EARTHQUAKE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 378, 23 April 1881, Page 3

A NEW KIND OF EARTHQUAKE.

The canton of Goderville, in the Seine Infdrieure, has been in the language of French journalism, “ vividly impressed” by an accident which occurred there in the night between 3rd and 4th of this month. In the small village of Brbaulb is or rather was, a cottage inhabited by an old v Oman of eighty, and her infant granddaughter, aged ten. The two oc. cupants of the cattage Wtre in bed and asleep, when in the dead of the night the girl was awakened by a curious sound of cracking and fol'owed by strange and unearthly movements of the bed and its surroundings. As the noises became more loud and unaccountable, she at length aroused the ancient dame, who lost no time in escaping with her companion from the room. They rushed, without waiting to dress, into the street, and it was lucky they did so, for a few seconds after the entire- habitation vanished as if by magic from the scene. The earth, indeed, had in sober interest gaped apart, and the whole structure had fallen into a most undeniable chasm. It was not till the next morning that the causes of the apparently supernatural occurrence could be ascertained ; and it was then found that two cottages and part of third had been swallowed up in the abyss. It turns out that the hamlet had been built upon the top of a stone quarry, which had been used at one time for extracting stone, and which in still earlier times had served as a Roman cemetery. About twenty-five years ago a number of funeral urns had been dug out of it and consigned to the museum at Havre, and these explorations had no doubt undermined the soil and weakened the foundations of the houses. The severe frost and sudden thaw had completed the work thus begun, and the cottages had fallen bodily—but, as lu ck would have it, not without some, few minutes warning—into the gulf below, where they now remain, drowned in about twenty feet of water.