200 Account of a Torrent of Mud in Nen' Granada. 



their strength by the cold, who might otherwise have extricated 

 themselves from the mass. This terrific inundation has been pro- 

 duced by the precipitating down of a piece of rock from the frozen 

 desert of Ruiz, in which the River Lagunilla takes its source. The 

 present aspect of the plain of Lagunilla is that of a new desert of 

 sand or shingle, with some islets of wood, and a few great trees 

 left standing by themselves ; and the space of land covered may be 

 calculated, at least, at four square leagues, or perhaps six leagues 

 would not be an excessive calculation. The thickness of the layer of 

 mud varies, being greater towards the higher part of the valley 

 where the torrent was deepest, so that there it reached to the 

 branches of the highest trees. In whatever part it has been sound- 

 ed it gives a depth about the height of a man ; but supposing that 

 the medium depth be not more than a yard, and the superficial ex- 

 tent four square leagues, the quantity of matter poured down amounts 

 to more than two hundred and fifty millions of tons." 



With this account there is published a letter from Senhor J. 

 Uldarico Leira to the Secretary of State for the Home Depart- 

 ment, giving an account of the efforts made to assist the unhappy 

 sufferers, and also an acknowledgment on the part of government of 

 the services of the philanthropic citizens who thus assisted. We 

 append some extracts from the former of these documents. 



LAGUNILLA. 



" Republic of New Granada. — Government of the Province of 

 Mariquita. Ihague, March 5, 1845. — On the 23d of the last 

 month, I announced to your Excellency the misfortune occasioned 

 by the overflowing of the Lagunilla, and on the same day set out 

 with Senhor Andres Caicedo and my secretary, arriving at Los 

 Peladeros on the 24th. There I dictated all the orders necessary 

 to liberate those who remained insulated and exposed to certain 

 death. In the midst of a melancholy scene, which at each step 

 offered me some new picture of suffering, I had the consolation of 

 . saving more than eighty persons, who were in the midst of imprac- 

 ticable sloughs, full of wounds and bruises, and sinking through 

 hunger and thirst. As&isted by Senhor Caicedo and the public 

 authorities of the canton of Mariquita, I was enabled to provide 

 subsistence for more than four hundred persons, whom I employed 

 in assisting the sufferers, who thus received the little aid that I was 

 enabled to give them. 



" The wounded who had friends were conveyed to them, and those 

 who had none were committed to the care of any person willing to 

 receive them, and whose trouble I compensated. According to the 

 data which I could collect at Peladeros, there must have perished 

 more than a thousand persons in the six square leagues which I 

 calculated to have been inundated ; and the capital destroyed could not 

 amount to less than half a million of dollars. 



" The phenomenon which has occasioned these misfortunes was, 



