Letter 0912

Thoresby follows up his account of the earthquake with another, this time from a clergyman near Lincoln, who wrote: ‘December 20, 5:00am; noise like 3 coaches driving furiously; great damage was done to the composure of a nearby gentlewoman’. Thoresby describes a curiosity he found: a small egg within a regular egg, about 2.5 inches in circumference. Thoresby was an antiquary and topographer. He expanded his fathers Musaeum Thoresbyanum impressively, and his collection brought him into discussion with many important political and scholarly figures (P. E. Kell, Thoresby, Ralph (16581725), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2006 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/27334, accessed 27 June 2013]).