Ten Thousand Wonderful Things: Comprising whatever is marvellous and rare, curious, eccentric and extraordinary in all ages and nations
History
Ten Thousand Wonderful Things: Comprising whatever is marvellous and rare, curious, eccentric and extraordinary in all ages and nations
Curiosities and wonders; Encyclopedias and dictionaries; Folklore
disease carried off 100,000 persons in London: it is singular, that the
only parish quite exempt from infection was St. John the Evangelist, in
Watling Street.
LANDSLIP AT COLEBROOK, SHROPSHIRE.
A most remarkable circumstance happened there in the morning of the
27th of May, 1773, about four o'clock. Near 4,000 yards from the river
Severn stood a house, where a family dwelt; the man got up about three
o'clock, heard a rumbling noise, and felt the ground shake under him,
on which he called up his family. They perceived the ground begin to
move, but knew not which way to run; however, they providentially and
wonderfully escaped, by taking an immediate flight, for just as they
got to an adjacent wood, the ground they had left separated from that
on which they stood. They first observed a small crack in the ground
about four or five inches wide, and a field that was sown with oats
to heave up and roll about like waves of water; the trees moved as
if blown with wind, but the air was calm and serene; the Severn (in
which at that time was a considerable flood) was agitated very much,
and the current seemed to run upwards. They perceived a great crack
run very quick up the ground from the river. Immediately about thirty
acres of land, with the hedges and trees standing (except a few that
were overturned), moved with great force and swiftness towards the
Severn, attended with great and uncommon noise, compared to a large
flock of sheep running swiftly. That part of the land next the river
was a small wood, less than two acres, in which grew twenty large oaks;
a few of them were thrown down, and as many more were undermined and
overturned; some left leaning, the rest upright, as if never disturbed.
The wood was pushed with such velocity into the channel of the Severn
(which at that time was remarkably deep), that it forced the waters up
in columns a considerable height, like mighty fountains, and drove the
bed of the river before it on the opposite shore, many feet above the
surface of the water, where it lodged, as did one side of the wood;
the current being instantly stopped, occasioned a great inundation
above, and so sudden a fall below, that many fish were left on dry
land, and several barges were heeled over, and when the stream came
down were sunk, but none were damaged above. The river soon took its
course over a large meadow that was opposite the small wood, and in
three days wore a navigable channel through the meadow. A turnpike road
was moved more than thirty yards from its former situation, and to all
appearance rendered for ever impassable. A barn was carried about the
same distance, and left as a heap of rubbish in a large chasm; the
house received but little damage. A hedge that was joined to the garden
was removed about fifty yards. A great part of the land was in confused
heaps, full of cracks, from four inches to more than a yard wide.
Several very long and deep chasms were formed in the upper part of the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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