Now! Then! John Wesley ponders the cause of the huge landslip (“like many cannons, or loud and rolling thunder”) of 25 March at Whitestone Cliff (Hambleton Hills)

Excerpt

There remains no other natural cause assignable, but imprisoned air. I say imprisoned; for as to the fashionable opinion, that the exterior air is the grand agent in earthquakes, it is so senseless, unmechanical, unphilosophical a dream, as deserves not to be named, but to be exploded. But it is hard to conceive how even imprisoned air could produce such an effect. It might, indeed, shake, tear, raise, or sink the earth; bụt how could it cleave a solid rock? Here was not room for a quantity of it sufficient to do any thing of this nature, at least, unless it had been suddenly and violently expanded by fire, which was not the case. Could a small quantity of air without that violent expansion, have torn so large a body of rock from the rest, to which it adhered in one solid mass? Could it have shivered this into pieces, and scattered several of those pieces some hundred yards round? Could it have transported those promontories of earth, with their incumbent load, and set them down, unbroken, unchanged, at a distance? Truly I am not so great a volunteer in faith as to be able to believe this. He that supposes this, must suppose air to be not only a very strong, (which we allow,) but a very wise agent; while it bore its charge with so great caution as not to hurt or dislocate any part of it. What then could be the cause? What indeed, but God, who arose to shake terribly the earth; who purposely chose such a place, where there is so great a concourse of nobility and gentry every year; and wrought in such a manner, that many might see it and fear; that all who travel one of the most frequented roads in England, might see it almost whether they would or no, for many miles together. It must, likewise, for many years, maugre [defy] all the art of man, be a visible monument of his power; all that ground being now so encumbered with rocks and stones, that it cannot be either ploughed or grazed. Nor will it serve any use but to tell all that see it, Who can stand before this great God?

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.
Abbreviations:

ER: East Riding
GM: Greater Manchester
NR: North Riding
NY: North Yorkshire
SY: South Yorkshire
WR: West Riding
WY: West Yorkshire

Comment

Wesley says Monday, June 1st, but calendar and context indicate that it was Monday, June 2nd.

Via Grainger, who adds:

In the north-eastern side of the great vale of York are the Hambleton Hills, a long mountain range, presenting a bold elevation to the valley at its foot. On the face of this range of hills are two remarkable objects, severally named The White Horse of Kilburn, and The White Mare of Whitstonecliff, the first being the figure of a horse cut on the steep hill side, the second a rocky precipice, so named, on the face of the hill. These two objects can be seen at a great distance from the plain below, from the higher country towards the west and south-west, and from the North-Eastern Railway for several miles of its course.

The derivation of the first portion of the name of White Mare of Whitstonecliff belongs to legend, the second to the natural appearance of the precipice. Here is no figure, fancied or real, of a white horse. The tale is thus told by tradition: A white mare in training at the Dialstone stables had hitherto defied all efforts to break her to obedience, when a wicked jockey swore a terrible oath, that he would either subdue her or ride her to the infernal regions. He mounted, rode her quietly to the training ground, a short distance from the Whitstonecliff, when, as if moved by some sudden impulse to madness, she grasped the bit between her teeth, dashed like lightning to the edge of the cliff, and sprung from it with a bound right into the middle of the “bottomless” lake below. The waters closed over them, and the wild white mare and her wicked rider were seen no more. Hence the name of the cliff. A rhyme current among the hills says:

When Hambleton Hills are covered with corn and hay,
The White Mare of Whits’oncliff will lead it away.

The front of the precipice is about 200 feet in depth, by 500 yards in length, composed of jagged and fractured limestone, in beds varying from twelve inches to four feet in thickness. Immense heaps of rock have fallen from the face of the cliff at different times, and lie piled in masses at its base (Grainger 1887).

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Original

On Thursday, March 25th last, being the week before Easter, many persons observed a great noise near a ridge of mountains in Yorkshire, called Black-Hamilton. It was observed chiefly in the south-west side of the mountain, about a mile from the course where the Hamilton races are run, near a ridge of rocks, commonly called Whiston-Cliffs, or Whiston-White-Mare, two miles from Sutton, about five from Thirsk.

The same noise was heard on Wednesday, by all who went that way. On Thursday, about seven in the morning, Edward Abbot, weaver, and Adam Bosomworth, bleacher, both of Sutton, riding under Whiston-Cliffs, heard a roaring (so they termed it) like many cannons, or loud and rolling thunder. It seemed to come from the cliffs, looking up to which, they saw a large body of stone, four or five yards broad, split and fly off from the very top of the rocks. They thought it strange, but rode on. Between ten and eleven, a larger piece of the rock, about fifteen yards thick, thirty high, and between sixty and seventy broad, was torn off, and thrown into the valley.

About seven in the evening, one who was riding by, observed the ground to shake exceedingly, and soon after several large stones or rocks, of some tons’ weight each, rose out of the ground. Others were thrown on one side, others turned upside down, and many rolled over and over; being a little surprised, and not very curious, he hasted on his way.

On Friday and Saturday, the ground continued to shake, and the rocks to roll over one another. The earth also clave asunder in very many places, and continued so to do till Sunday morning.

Being at Osmotherley, seven miles from the cliffs, on [Sunday], June 1st [1755], and finding Edward Abbot there, I desired him the next morning to show me the way thither. I walked, crept, and elimbed round and over great part of the ruins. I could not perceive by any sign that there was ever any cavity in the rock at all ; but one part of the solid stone is cleft from the rest, in a perpendicular line, and smooth as if cut with instruments. Nor is it barely thrown down, but split into many hundred pieces, some of which lie four or five hundred yards from the main rock.

The ground nearest the cliff is not raised, but sunk considerably beneath the level; but at some distance it is raised in a ridge of eight or ten yards high, twelve or fifteen broad, and near a hundred long. Adjoining to this lies an oval piece of ground thirty or forty yards in diameter, which has been removed whole as it is, from beneath the cliff, without the least fissure, with all its load of rocks, some of which were as large as the hull of a small ship. At a little distance is a second piece of ground, forty or fifty yards across, which has been also transplanted entire, with rocks of various sizes upon it, and a tree growing out of one of them; by the removal of one or both of these, I suppose the hollow near the cliff was made.

All round them lay stones and rocks, great and small, some on the surface of the earth, some half sunk into it, some almost covered, in variety of positions. Between these, the ground was cleft asunder in a thousand places. Some of the apertures were nearly closed again, some gaping as at first. Between thirty and forty acres of land, as is commonly supposed, (though some reckon above sixty,) are in this condition.

On the skirts of these I observed, in abundance of places, the green turf (for it was pasture land) as it were pared off, two or three inches thick, and wrapped round like sheets of lead. A little farther it was not cleft or broken at all, but raised in ridges, five or six feet long, exactly resembling the graves in a church-yard; of these there is a vast number.

That part of the cliff from which the rest is torn, lies so high, and is now of so bright a colour [white], that it is plainly visible to all the country round, even at the distance of several miles. We saw it distinctly not only from the street in Thirsk, but for five or six miles as we rode towards York; so we did likewise in the great north road, between Sandhutton and Northallerton.

But, how may we account for this phenomenon? Was it effected by a merely natural cause? If so, that cause must either have been fire, water, or air. It could not be fire; for then some mark of it must have appeared, either at the time, or after it. But no such mark does appear, nor ever did; not so much as the least smoke, either when the first or second rock was removed, or in the whole space between Tuesday and Sunday.

It could not be water; for no water issued out when the one or the other rock was torn off; nor had there been any rains some time before: it was, in that part of the country, a remarkably dry season. Neither was there any cavity in that part of the rock, wherein a sufficient quantity of water might have lodged. On the contrary, it was one single, solid mass, which was evenly and smoothly cleft asunder.

There remains no other natural cause assignable, but imprisoned air. I say imprisoned; for as to the fashionable opinion, that the exterior air is the grand agent in earthquakes, it is so senseless, unmechanical, unphilosophical a dream, as deserves not to be named, but to be exploded. But it is hard to conceive how even imprisoned air could produce such an effect. It might, indeed, shake, tear, raise, or sink the earth; bụt how could it cleave a solid rock? Here was not room for a quantity of it sufficient to do any thing of this nature, at least, unless it had been suddenly and violently expanded by fire, which was not the case. Could a small quantity of air without that violent expansion, have torn so large a body of rock from the rest, to which it adhered in one solid mass? Could it have shivered this into pieces, and scattered several of those pieces some hundred yards round? Could it have transported those promontories of earth, with their incumbent load, and set them down, unbroken, unchanged, at a distance? Truly I am not so great a volunteer in faith as to be able to believe this. He that supposes this, must suppose air to be not only a very strong, (which we allow,) but a very wise agent; while it bore its charge with so great caution as not to hurt or dislocate any part of it.

What then could be the cause? What indeed, but God, who arose to shake terribly the earth; who purposely chose such a place, where there is so great a concourse of nobility and gentry every year; and wrought in such a manner, that many might see it and fear; that all who travel one of the most frequented roads in England, might see it almost whether they would or no, for many miles together. It must, likewise, for many years, maugre [defy] all the art of man, be a visible monument of his power; all that ground being now so encumbered with rocks and stones, that it cannot be either ploughed or grazed. Nor will it serve any use but to tell all that see it, Who can stand before this great God?

1311 words.

Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

2 June 1755: John Wesley ponders the cause of the huge landslip (“like many cannons, or loud and rolling thunder”) of 25 March at Whitestone Cliff (Hambleton Hills)

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