64 Procecdimift. 



occur most rarely : they affect the earth with a whh-lmg 

 motion, resulting from a combination of the undulating and 

 upheaving motions, or perhaps by undulatory motions crossing 

 each other at an angle, somewhat resembling the action of a 

 cross sea. In the earthquake of Catania, in 1818, several 

 statues were turned round; and portions of rock had their 

 directions changed from north and south to east and west. 

 In the earthquake of Valparaiso, in Chili, in 1822, the church 

 of La Mercea presented a most remarkable ruin ; the tower 

 was built of bricks, with walls six feet in thickness up to the 

 belfry ; the walls were shivered into blocks, and thrown down. 

 On each side of the church were buttresses of solid brickwork 

 also six feet in thickness : those on the western side of the 

 church were all thrown down, as were all but two on the 

 eastern side, and those two were twisted round, presenting 

 the angle of the buttress to the wall of the church, instead of 

 the square side of the buttress. In an earthquake in Chili, 

 in 1835, an angular stone pinnacle had been turned half 

 round without being thrown down from its base, and this 

 could have been done only by a I'otatory motion of the earth. 

 In Calabria a plantation of Mulberry-trees was carried into the 

 middle of a corn-field and left standing there, and a piece of 

 ground sown with Lupins was forced into a vineyard. The 

 changes of ground which occurred after this earthquake were 

 the causes of numerous law-suits as to the possession of 

 property, the boundary-marks being removed or altogether 

 obliterated. 



Humboldt records an extraordinary fact. While surveying 

 the ruins of the destroyed town of Eiobamba, in S. America, 

 for the purpose of making a map, he was shown a place where 

 the whole furniture of one house was found buried beneath 

 the ruins of another house. The ground seems to have been 

 moved first downwards, then horizontally, and subsequently 

 upheaved into its new position. 



There are districts in South America which never experience 

 shocks of earthquake, although the countries lying all round 

 them are subject to such visitations. The cause of this 

 exemption is not known. The inhabitants of those districts 



