ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 131 



limits of this State we are not subject to momentary destruction from their 

 effects : the answer to this is found in the preceding paragraph, from which 

 cause it will be seen that our experience is more apparent than real, relatively, 

 and farther still, we should find a much greater frequency of shocks, beyond all 

 doubt, if the instruments for their registry in different parts of the State were 

 more plentiful than at present. 



There is no good reason for the supposition that we are in more danger from 

 these phenomena than upon the Atlantic border, for the reason that we are so far 

 removed from the centers of immediate and violent volcanic action, that it would 

 require dangerous tension of the imagination to place California within the 

 range of those physical causes which are so conducive to violent, repeated, and 

 destructive earthquakes. This State cannot be considered more subject to earth- 

 quakes than it is to volcanoes, relatively, and this is said too in the face of our 

 own records relating to the former. We need have little fear from these dis- 

 turbances so long as we are so far removed on either hand from the great 

 centers, and even from the terminal points of those centers of volcanic dis- 

 turbance, from the action of which such disastrous consequences have, and will 

 again follow to their immediate districts. 



A moment's consideration will convince the most sceptical of the prevailing 

 fallacy relating to this subject. In the first place, we are situated between two 

 great termini of active volcanic ranges, the nearest being Colima, 1,200 miles 

 south, the other on the coast of Alaska, more than 1,300 miles to the north ; 

 the distance inclusive between the points being nearly or perhaps quite 2,600 

 miles, in which no active volcanic vents abound, unless we make an exception 

 of Mounts Hood and St. Helen in Oregon, of which the testimony is somewhat 

 dubious, aud the nearest of which is 700 miles. To the east there are no vol- 

 canoes for a distance of 2,500 miles, and to the west for a much greater distance 

 than in either of the other directions. This, certainly, should be sufficient to 

 palliate the fears of the timid, in some degree at least, and to silence in part also 

 the sensational articles which appear from time to time in the press of this 

 and the eastern States, as to California being an oven within the range of 

 active volcanic action, and a volcanic country. 



In preparing this paper I have endeavored to obtain, as far as possible, the 

 most correct information relating to the history of these ])henomena in former 

 years. It is my desire also to correct some of the misrepresentations and state- 

 ments current relating to the severity of earthquake shocks in this country 

 during the earlier periods of its history. 



I have at the present time some additional information relating to the great 

 earthquake of 1812, which did not appear in my first paper on this subject, and 

 which must now be placed on record. These facts relate more to the phenom- 

 ena occurring during that year, rather than to the destruction of the missions, 

 all of which will be found in their proper place below. 



From careful inquiry of the early settlers and residents I cannot learn that 

 any more than one earthquake has occurred which was in any considerable 

 degree of a serious character, and but one which has caused the destruction of 

 either life or property to any extent. 



