774 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



the great variety of decomposition products which the different 

 species of bacteria produce, we can see ahead a great development 

 m the varieties of cheese. Who can tell what may he the numer- 

 ous varieties of cheeses produced when our cheese-makers have 

 learned to ripen their product with pure cultures of different spe- 

 cies of bacteria, instead of depending as they do now upon '^ wiW 

 species which get into the cheese by accident from the milk ' 



THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE OF PORT ROYAL. 



By Colonel A. B. ELLIS. 



rpHE popular notion of the great catastrophe which overtook 

 -L the city of Port Royal, Jamaica, in the year 1692, is that the 

 earth yawned open, taking in the unfortunate city, as it were at 

 one gulp, and that the next minute the sea flowed several fathoms 

 deep over the spot where it had stood. Connected with this 

 notion is the belief, which has been sedulously inculcated by 

 several generations of religious writers, that the catastrophe 

 was a signal instance of divine wrath ; that, in fact, the city was 

 swallowed up on account of the desperate wickedness of its in- 

 habitants—the buccaneers and their associates. It is somewhat 

 strange that in this age of investigation and research no one 

 should have yet come forward to dispel some#f the illusions with 

 which ignorance and superstition have clothed this great dis- 

 aster ; for we may confidently affirm that the earth did not yawn 

 open and swallow up the town of Port Royal, which was de- 

 stroyed in a perfectly natural and comprehensible manner ; and to 

 those persons who profess to be exponents of divine motives we 

 may point out that Port Royal was not overwhelmed when it was 

 the resort of the buccaneers and the dissolute and profligate of 

 both sexes, but at least fifteen years after these gentry had been 

 expelled from Jamaica, and had removed their headquarters to 

 the French portion of Hispaniola. 



The former city of Port Royal stood where the present town 

 now stands, at the western extremity of the long tongue of sand, 

 called " The Palisades," which incloses the harbor of Kingston on 

 the southern side. Its area in 1692 was much the same as it is 

 now ; for, except on the northern side, where the church buoy 

 marks the site of the submerged cathedral, the action of the tides 

 has in a great measure repaired the damage committed by the 

 earthquake. The accompanying map will enable the reader to 

 see its situation and surroundings at a glance. 



The sand-spit, some nine miles in length, called " The Palisades," 

 at the extremity of which Port Royal stands, owes its existence to 



