Here is at once an assemblage of all those properties and circumstances which we so often see in courses of electricity. Electricity may be call'd a sort of soul to matter, thought to be an ethereal fire pervading all things; and acting instantaneously, where, and as far as it is excited. 'Tis every body's observation, that there never was a winter, like the last past, in any one's memory, so extremely remarkable for warmth and driness, abounding with thunder and lightning, very uncommon in winter; coruscations in the air frequent, justly thought electrical by all philosophers; particularly, twice we had the extraordinary appearance of that called _aurora australis_, with colours altogether unusual; and this just before the first earthquake: All the while the wind constantly south and south-west, and that without rain, which is unusual with these winds. This state of the atmosphere had continued five months before the first earthquake. Is it not hence reasonable to conclude, that the earth, especially in our region, must be brought into an unusual state of electricity; into that vibratory condition wherein electricity consists; and, consequently, nothing was wanting but the approach of a non-electric body, to produce that snap, and that shock, which we call an earthquake; a vibration of the superficies of the earth. That the earth was in that vibratory and electric state we have further reason to conclude, from the very extraordinary forwardness of all the vegetable world with us. Every one knows, that, at the end of _February_, all sorts of garden-stuff, trees, fruits, and flowers, were as forward as in other years, by the middle of _April_. Conformable to which, experiments abundantly show, that electrifying of plants quickens their growth, equally as in animals it quickens the pulse. Nor will the unusual driness and warmth of the weather solely account for such a precipitate vegetation: because a necessary supply of rain was wanting, as in the natural Spring-season. A very long dry frost will produce the same electrical state of the earth, as it equally favours electrical experiments. Thus, _March_ 27, 1076, a frost from the 1st of _November_ to the middle of _April_, a general earthquake in _England_ succeeded. _Matt. Paris._ That of _Oxford_, 17th of _September_ 1683, was after a frost. _Jan._ 4, 1680, An earthquake in _Somersetshire_: The air was very calm; a frosty night. Mr. _Flamsted_ concurs with us, in our first position, That earthquakes always happen in _calm_ seasons. He adds, "That _Keckerman_, a learned author, who wrote on the subject, affirms, and backs it from the authority of _Aristotle_ and _Pliny_."