EARTH PULSATIONS. Definition of an earth pulsation—Indications of pendulums—Indications of levels—Other phenomena indicating the existence of earth pulsations—Disturbances in lakes and oceans—Phenomena resultant on earth pulsations—Cause of earth pulsations. The object of the present chapter is to show that from time to time it is very probable that slow but large wave-like undulations travel over or disturb the surface of the globe. These movements, which have escaped our attention on account of their slowness in period, for want of another term I call earth pulsations. The existence of movements such as these may be indicated to us by changes in the level of bodies of water like seas and lakes, by the movements of delicate levels, by the displacement of the bob of a pendulum relatively to some point on the earth above which it hangs, and by other phenomena which will be enumerated. _Indication of pendulums._—Pendulums which have been suspended for the purposes of seismometrical observations have, both by observers in Italy and Japan, been seen to have moved a short distance out from, and then back to, their normal position. This motion has simply taken place on one side of their central position, and is not due to a swing. The character of these records is such that we might imagine the soil on which the support of the pendulum had rested to have been slowly tilted, and slowly lowered. They are the most marked on those pendulums provided with an index writing a record of its motions on a smoked glass plate, which index is so arranged that it gives a multiplied representation of the relative motion between it and the earth. As motions of this sort might be possibly due to the action of moisture in the soil tilting the support of the pendulum, and to a variety of other accidental causes, we cannot insist on them as being certain indications that there are slow tips in the soil, but for the present allow them to remain as possible proof of such phenomena. Evidence of displacement of the vertical, which are more definite than the above, are those made by Bertelli, Rossi, Count Malvasia, and other Italian observers, who, whilst recording earth tremors, have spent so much time in watching the vibrations of stiles of delicate pendulums by means of microscopes. As a result of these observations we are told that the point about which the stile of a pendulum oscillates is variable. These displacements take place in various azimuths, and they appear to be connected with changes of the barometer. I have made similar observations in Japan.