METEOEOLOGY. 421 



[Correspondence.] 



THE EAKTHQUAKE OF 1811 AT NEW MADRID, MISSOURI. 

 [From the narrative of an eye-ivitness.) 



BY TIMOTHY DUDLEY, OF JACKSONVILLE, ILLINOIS. 



I am indebted to James Ritchie, esq., of Jerseyville, Illinois, for 

 the facts embodied in this article, who was living with his family at 

 the time of this earthquake in the vicinity of its most violent commo- 

 tions, and those scenes were so vividly impressed upon his mind that, 

 after a half century has nearly passed away, they are as fresh and vivid 

 as though they transpired yesterday : 



On the west bank of the Mississippi river, sixty-five miles below the 

 mouth of the Ohio, by the windings of the river, and about twenty 

 miles in a direct line, stands an old Spanish town called New Madrid. 

 The southern boundary line of Kentucky is the famous political 

 line of 36° 30' north latitude, constituting also the southern boundary 

 line of Missouri, crossing the Mississippi river a short distance 

 below New Madrid. Thirty miles below was an old French village 

 called Little Prairie, and south and west of this village is a long 

 cypress swamp extending north and south a distance of one hundred 

 and twenty miles, and in breadth east and west twenty-five or thirty 

 miles, which was called fifty years since the St. Francis swamps. 



I have been thus particular in locating these old towns and lowlands 

 from the fact that evidence is continually accumulating which goes to 

 prove that all the commotions which have disturbed the eartli's surface 

 for the last half century in the western States have had their origin 

 in the St. Francis swamps. 



On the IGth day of December, 1811, at two o'clock in the morning, 

 the inhabitants of New Madrid were aroused from their slumbers by 

 a deep rumbling noise like many thunders in the distance, accom- 

 panied with a violent vibratory or oscillating movement of the earth 

 from the southwest to the northeast, so violent at times that men, 

 women, and children caught hold of the nearest objects to prevent 

 falling to the ground. 



It was dangerous to stay in their dwellings, for fear they might 

 fall and bury them in their ruins ; it was dangerous to be out in the 

 open air, for large trees would be breaking off their tops by the vio- 

 lence of the shocks, and continually falling to the earth, or the earth 

 itself opening in dark, yawning chasms, or fissures, and belching forth 

 muddy water, large lumps of blue clay, coal, and sand, and when the 

 violence of the shocks were over, moaned and slept, again gathering 

 power for a more violent commotion. 



On this day tv/enty-eight distinct shocks were counted, all coming 

 from the southwest and passing to the northeast, while the fissures 

 would run in an opposite direction, or from the northwest to the 

 southeast. 



On a small river called the Pemiseo at that time stood a mill owned 

 by a Mr. Riddle. This river ran a southeast course, and probably 



