A correspondent of the Royal Society wrote that a clergyman near Boston assured him “that immediately after the earthquake there was such a stink that the family could scarce bear to be in the house for a considerable time that night.” Another clergyman writes that in the following April the fine sand thrown up by the earthquake “had a very offensive stench--nay, it was more nauseous than a putrefying corpse: yet, in a very little while after, it had no smell at all. How long it was before it began to have this stench, I am not certain; but I believe it was covered with snow until a little while before.” Another minister records that “about three days before the earthquake there was perceived an ill-stinking smell, in the water of several wells. Some searched their wells, but found nothing that might thus affect them. The scent was so strong and offensive that for eight or ten days they entirely omitted using it. In the deepest of these wells, which was about thirty-six feet, the water was turned to a brimstone color, but had nothing of the smell, and was thick like puddle water.” Some wells, dry just before the shock, immediately filled up. Occasional shocks were felt for some months after. From the phenomena present here, and in many similar cases, it will appear that large volumes of pent-up [Illustration: SCENE AT CHARLESTON.] gases may be discharged in districts remote from any volcanic region. In some instances, we are informed that immediately after severe shocks, the streams and vegetation have proved poisonous to cattle. There were light shocks felt in 1732, 1737 and 1744; but none of these are said to have done any damage beyond throwing down a few stone walls. Thus we find within a century fourteen earthquake periods in New England alone; and in several cases the shocks were numerous, extending over a period of several months. Comparing the small area with the whole region, and remembering that shocks are more frequent in the central, southern and western portions of the country, it is fair to conclude that the merest tithe of those actually occurring could have come under the notice of our ancestors. The most violent shock ever known in New England came eighteen days after the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755, preceded by a peculiar, rumbling roar. Then came a “rapid, jarring, vibrating motion,” with an upward shock: then a “violent, prodigious shock, as suddenly, to all appearances as a thunderclap breaking upon a house and attended by a great noise.” Then followed a series of “quick and violent concussions, jerks and wrenches, attended by an undulating, waving motion of the whole surface of the ground, not unlike the shaking and quaking of a large bog.”