Note 7 — REFERENCE TO THE PLATES.

(P. 135). The views stated in note 3 (to page 96) may here again be referred to as in point. How is it possible, in the present state of science at least, to establish any physical connection between an eruption in Java and one of Vesuvius, "with half the world between," when not even having the solitary connecting link of complete contemporaneity, and which, if it existed, yet might be nothing but accidental? A list of shocks upon record, which have occurred more or less nearly simultaneously at distant parts of the world, may be found in my fourth Report, ("Facts of Earthquakes," "British Association Reports, 1858") and the reasons are there given for rejecting the notion of any direct physical connection between the origins of the respective shocks.

Shocks, emanating from the close neighbourhood of volcanic vents, or simultaneity of eruption, in vents not far distant from each other, stand upon a different footing.