These tremendous convulsions of nature commenced in December, 1811, and were continued, at intervals, until the latter end of the succeeding month of March, with different degrees of violence, in this and some of the adjacent states. In November, 1812, I visited this town, and then understood that the wells, which are generally very deep, had an abundance of water in them. This continued to be the case for about one year after; and in the College well, in particular, which was a remarkably fine one, there were always about twelve feet of water, notwithstanding its daily consumption by more than two hundred persons. Shortly after this time, many of the wells in the town began to fail in their usual supply of water, although they were frequently cleaned out and occasionally deepened. Their state became worse every year, until, at length, about three years since, some of them proved to be entirely dry, and most of the others had their water turbid, and diminished to the depth of only two or three feet. A little anterior to this period, what were called the dry years had commenced, and there were, comparatively, very scanty falls of rain until the last spring; since when there has been a very large quantity. To elucidate the subject more fully, it may not be amiss to give some topographical account of the town of Columbia. About a mile from the eastern bank of the Cogaree the town begins to be thickly built up, and at this distance the elevation of ground is supposed to be one hundred feet above the level of the river in its ordinary state. The hill is then tolerably level for the space of a mile or more in its western extent, and its soil is principally composed of a loose, porous sand, with which few, if any, stones are intermixed at any depth that has yet been penetrated. In attempting to account for the failure of the well-waters, it was supposed by some that the earthquakes had produced such changes in the loose texture of the soils, that the veins of water which used to supply the wells, had sunk beneath the level of these reservoirs; but on this head it is to be observed, that there was no remarkable failure of water for one or two years after these changes were supposed to have been effected. Others again, connecting the greatest failure of water with the concurring dearth of rain, conceived that the fact might be explained by the droughts occasioning a deficiency in the river-water, and thus cutting off the supply which they supposed had heretofore percolated from the margin of the river into the wells. If their hypothesis was correct, it was believed that the difficulty would be removed, either by deepening the wells, or by subsequent large supplies of rain. Many wells were immediately deepened from two to eight or ten feet, but the remedy proved very inadequate. And since the great falls of rain, within a year past, although there are somewhat larger supplies of water in some