William Phillips' Observation of an Extraordinary Natural Upheaval on Aberdare Mountain

“Now, that which happened in that place on the 1st of February is worth noting. As two brethren were going up the mountain, near the foot of the mountain, they met a man and woman running back filled with fear, who said that the mountain was boiling up, and when it had risen up several yards, they heard a sound like a cannon’s roar. After hearing so much talk about the thing, I myself went in the company of two of the brethren to see the place, and that which we saw surprised us greatly. It had happened within two yards of the aforementioned stones. We saw that many hundreds of tons of earth had been blown about 250 yards away, and had left a crater about 120 yards long, from 15 to 20 yards wide, and from one to two yards deep. Pieces of old oak in the ground had been blown away, about 6 feet long by 3 feet in diameter, and some of them so hard that they could not be broken or sawed, and the others were black and soft. There are varying opinions about the happening; some say that it was an earthquake, others that sulfur caused it, and others that it was water. The place was mushy and soft, no matter what caused it. But my opinion is, that the whole thing was one of the signs of the latter days, and that many similar things will yet come to pass, to testify that God is taking his work forward. — Udgorn Seion (Zion's Trumpet), No. 4 (February 22, 1851) (English translation by Ronald D. Dennis)”