422 METEOROLOGY. 



was eitlier a tributary of the St. Francis or lost itself in those swamps. 

 This river blew up* for a distance of nearly fifty miles, the bed en- 

 tirely destroyed, the mill swallowed up in the ruins, and an orchard 

 of ten acres of bearing apple trees, also belonging to Mr. Riddle, 

 nearly ruined. The earth, in these explosious, would open in fissures 

 from forty to eighty rods in length and from three to five feet in 

 width; their depth none knew, as no one had strength of nerve suffi- 

 cient to fathom them, and the sand and earth would slide in, or water 

 run in, and soon partially fill them up. 



After the earthquake had subsided there was not a perfect row of 

 trees left in this orchard — one-half destroyed, some leaning in one di- 

 rection, others directly contrary ; some covered to the limbs in these 

 chasms as they filled up, and others with their roots turned entirely 

 out of the earth. 



Large forest trees which stood in the track of these chasms would 

 be split from root to branch, the courses of streams changed, the bot- 

 toms of lakes be pushed up from beneath and form dry land, dry land 

 blow up, settle down, and form lakes of dark, muddy water. 



Where the travelled, beaten road ran one day, on the next might 

 be found some large fissure crossing it, half filled with muddy, torpid 

 water. It was dangerous to travel after dark, for no one knew the 

 changes which an hour might eifect in the face of the country, and 

 yet so general was the terror that men^ women^ and children fled to 

 the highlands to avoid being engulphed in one common grave. One 

 family, in their efibrts to reach the highlands by a road they all were 

 well acquainted with, unexpectedly came to the borders of an exten- 

 sive lake ; the land had sunk, and water had flowed over it or gushed 

 up out of the earth and formed a new lake. The opposite shore they 

 felt confident could not be far distant, and they travelled on in tepid 

 water, from twelve to forty inches in depth, of a temperature of 100 

 degress^ or over blood heat, at times of a warmth to be uncomfortable, 

 for the distance of four or five miles, and reached the highlands in 

 safety. 



On the 8th of February, 1812, the day on which the severest shocks 

 took place, the shocks seemed to go in waves, like the waves .of the 

 sea, throwing down brick chimnies level with the ground and two 

 brick dwellings in New Madrid, and yet, with all its desolating 

 efiects, but one person was thought to have been lost in these commo- 

 tions. 



A family of the name of Curran were moving from New Madrid to 

 an old French town on the Arkansas river, called the Port ; had 

 passed the St. Francis swamps and found some of their cattle missing; 

 Le Roy, the youngest son, took an Indian poney, rode back to hunt 

 them, and was in the swamp when the first shock took place, was 

 never seen afterwards, and was supposed to liave been lost in some of 

 those fearful chasms. 



The Port was about one hundred miles below what is now called 

 Little Rock, and claims its settlement as far back as the settlement of 



^'" I have used this expression because it was so given by the narrator, and used by the 

 people, as conveying the appearance of these scenes as they passed before them. 



