"AIR-QUAKES."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 12 November 1913, Page 6

"AIR-QUAKES."

j A strange and startling meteoroi logical phenomenon occurred recently in Berkshire, England, which caused a good deal of. mystification. About 9 o'clock on November 19th, the inhabitants of Sunningdale, Sunningliill, Lewis, Abingdon, Bidcot, and, Other villages within the radius of a few miles, were startled In vvlr-it appeared to be a tremendous explosion. A deep rumbling sound was heard, houses were shaken, ivindows rattled, and people ran terrified out of theiV* houses. The disturbance lasted fully three minutes. Investigations showed that there *vns nothing in the neighbourhood capable of ■ producing an explosion of such intensity, and an earthquake was the second explanation which naturally suggested itself, to irnost people. Sir George Fordiiam,' however, who is well known for his treatises on meteorology and seismology, takes a different view df the occurrence, which he attributes to not ari earth, but an "air-quake." In t?he course of an explanatory letter published in the Westminster Gazette, he relates how,i in 1887, lie had' occasion to cany out an exhaustive inquiry into air-quakes, which had been observed over a large area in central England. His'cbnfclusiotns were supported by ilie ultimate discovery of two persons living, in different localities, each of whom saw the light of the aerial -explos-. ions. One other case of air-shock-came under the writer's notice in Switzerland in,. 1890, though in that.' instance the disturbance was urific(H>nipanied by sound, but otherwise, little attention has been drawn to this ftla'as of phenomena. j

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