id there to be much shaken by the gases and steam below. In this
eastern part of England, meanwhile, there is but little chance that an
earthquake will ever do much harm, because the ground here, for thousands
of feet down, is not hard and rocky, but soft--sands, clays, chalk, and
sands again; clays, soft limestones, and clays again--which all act as
buffers to deaden the earthquake shocks, and deaden too the earthquake
noise.

And how?

Put your ear to one end of a soft bolster, and let some one hit the other
end. You will hear hardly any noise, and will not feel the blow at all.
Put your ear to one end of a hard piece of wood, and let some one hit the
other. You will hear a smart tap; and perhaps feel a smart tap, too.
When you are older, and learn the laws of sound, and of motion among the
particles of bodies, you will know why. Meanwhile you may comfort
yourself with the thought that Madam How has (doubtless by command of
Lady Why) prepared a safe soft bed for this good people of Britain--not
that they may lie and sleep on it, but work and till, plant and build and
manufacture, and thrive in peace and comfort, we will trust and pray, for
many a hundred years to come. All that the steam inside the earth is
likely to do to us, is to raise parts of this island (as Hartford Bridge
Flats were raised, ages ago, out of the old icy sea) so slowly, probably,
that no man can tell whether they are rising or not. Or again, the steam-
power may be even now dying out under our island, and letting parts of it
sink slowly into the sea, as some wise friends of mine think that the
fens in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire are sinking now. I have shown you
where that kind of work has gone on in Norfolk; how the brow of
Sandringham Hill was once a sea-cliff, and Dersingham Bog at its foot a
shallow sea; and therefore that the land has risen there. How, again, at
Hunstanton Station there is a beach of sea-shells twenty feet above high-
water mark, showing that the land has risen there likewise. And how,
farther north again, at Brancaster, there are forests of oak, and fir,
and alder, with their roots still in the soil, far below high-water mark,
and only uncovered at low tide; which is a plain sign that there the land
has sunk. You surely recollect the sunken forest at Brancaster, and the
beautiful shells we picked up in its gullies, and the millions of live
Pholases boring into the clay and peat which once was firm dry land, fed
ov