THE GEEAT ERUPTION OF SAKURA-JTMA IN 1914. 69 



T,„ ,^ At last, at G.29 r.M., the violent destructive earth- 



J. oBj V "I RE AT 



quaÎe"o'f quake^^ (scale 0) occiirrecl, the strongest one in the last 

 catastrophe, which demolished the hewed-stone walls of 

 the city of Kagoshima, especially those running in N.-S. direction, 

 while the walls and stone -buildings built in the east-west direction 

 were simply fractured and twisted. The shocks seem to have 

 come fi^om S. 60° E. to N. G0° W., or the reverse, as may be 

 conjectured from the position of the overturned tomb -stones in 

 the city (see p. 59). 



Some houses in the dark city were totally wrecked, and a large pro- 

 portion of biiildiugs of foreign style were more or less damaged (Text-tig. 

 17). The casualties on this occasion were 13 killed and 111 wounded. 



Under the detonation by explosions, the sound of the alarm-bugling 

 of the Forty-fifth Regiment and the fire-beUs, the trembling and shaking 

 of ground and houses, tumultuous crowds deserted the city, and the 

 very last man left the telegraph office at 8 p.m. At about 9 P.M., a 

 Tsunami baseless rumor of the inrush of tsunami or sea-wave again 

 tlu'ew the refugees in open camps into indescribable confusion. An 

 hour, or an horn* and a half after the great earthquake a slight tsunami'^ 

 did come into the harbor quay of Kagoshima, caused probably through 

 tlie deflection of disturbed waves in the crooked bay of Kagoshima. 



The plateau of pumice-lapilli bed, 90 m. thick, was shaken at its 



1) According to C. Davison {Nature, 1914, p. 716 ; Geogr. Jour. London, June number, 

 1914), a Galitzin seismograph at Laibach, Austria, recorded an earthquake at 9 h. '29 m. 27 s. 

 A.M., Greenwich time, which corresponds to 6 h. 29 m. 2 s. p.m., Japan time. The coincidence 

 is remarkable. He remarks that the earthquake had a possible connection with the eruption of 

 Sakura-jima on the same day. Earthquakes connected with a volcanic eruption are usually of 

 less intensity and confined to small areas, while the one in question being of strong shocks 

 might haA'e originated at some distance from the volcano. The latter clause does not fit well in 

 the present case, as will be clear in the statement made in the Summary. It is to be noted 

 here that the same earthquake was recorded at 6 h. 30 m. 21 s, p.m. at Tokyo at a distance of 

 about 1,000 to». 



2) It is locally called ' shiwo-agé ' (j^ fê) or tide overflow, and this happened also in 1779, 

 especially when the new islands (pp. 48-55) rose from the boisterous sea bottom through the 

 eruptions of water and lava, though these ' shiwo-agé ' differ in their origin. 



