Richmond Enquirer

REMARKABLE OCCURRENCE.

On the night of the 13th instant, a piece of land of upwards of two acres, on the western bank of Otter Creek, in Weybridge, Vermont, instantaneously caved away and sunk about twenty feet from its former level. The ground, except a few feet of the surface, was composed, to a depth not ascertained, of blue clay, the upper strata of which were broken and turned up in a manner similar to cakes of ice, which stopped in an overflowed stream. There were on the ground, a dwelling house and potter's shop, which were overturned and dashed to pieces, and the furniture entirely destroyed. The frightened inhabitants, luckily warned of their danger by the cracking of the house for a few minutes before the convulsion, had just made their escape. The walls and contents of the cellar sunk between the fragments of clay, and the garden, orchard, &c. with trees buried to their tops, exhibit a melancholy scene of ruin. The bed of the river, which was clay, and more than twenty feet deep in that place, was raised by the convulsion, so as to stop the water for seven or eight hours, when it cut a new channel.

The novelty of the event has attracted thousands of spectators to view the ruins. The damage sustained by the owners, Messrs. Shubael and Charles Wales, is estimated at 800 or 900 dollars; and it is hoped that the people in the vicinity, remembering their own liability to be deprived in an instant of every earthly comfort, by the overruling hand of Providence, will assist them to repair the loss.

[Christian Messenger