96 EARTHQUAKES. 



1722. 



The shock of May 24th of this year was less violent than the preceding, though sufficiently so 

 to injure much property. 



1730. 



Probably the most extended in its destructive effects yet experienced was that which took 

 place between 1 and 2 A. M., 8th July, when ruin extended from Concepcion to Coquimbo. 

 Eyzaguirre says that the citizens of Concepcion were warned at 8 p. M. by awful subterranean 

 noises, and had barely escaped from their houses when the whole town came to the ground 

 with a crash. A few minutes afterwards, and before they had recovered from their consternation 

 and terror, the sea retired several hundred yards, and, as though it had gone to gather 

 strength, a momentary pause was followed by a wave no less appalling in its appearance than 

 its effects. About one hundred persons lost their lives. Though M. Gay publishes at length, 

 in a supplementary volume, the letter from which the succeeding information is derived, the 

 date of the earthquake given in his history is July 2d, at 2 A. M. At Santiago the towers of 

 several churches were thrown down, and two women killed. Serena, Valparaiso, and all 

 the fortifications on the Indian frontier, were destroyed ; and at Valparaiso, as at Concepcion, 

 the sea swept away what the oscillations had overturned. According to the report from the 

 Bishop of Santiago to the King, just referred to, there were three violent shocks on the same 

 day, 8th 9th July, within twelve hours. The first was between 1 and 2 A. M., the second 

 at 4f, and the third between noon and 1 p. M. During the second, which was the most 

 severe, the churches and houses were injured, the air was filled with clouds of dust, and it was 

 almost impossible to stand. So many shocks occurred in the ensuing two months, that no one 

 could preserve account of them ; indeed, there were portions of the time when the agitation was 

 incessant. To add to their miseries, rain followed soon after the great shock, and continued for 

 thirty hours, the citizens still under too great panic to enter their tottering dwellings. 



1751. 



Quite a sharp shock on the preceding evening, and another of no great violence some ten 

 minutes before the fatal catastrophe, had prepared the people of Concepcion for the convulsion 

 of May 24th. Carvallo says May 25th, and Eyzaguirre has it March ! Most of the citizens 

 were asleep when they were roused by the warning tremor, and -scarcely were they clear of 

 their chambers when a roaring noise, lasting six minutes, was accompanied by three shocks, 

 each more severe than that which preceded it. Temples, dwellings, people, all were pros- 

 trated ; and for some minutes many were unable to flee to the hills, to avoid the feared sea- 

 wave. Had it followed immediately, a moiety of the population must have been drowned ; but 

 more than half an hour elapsed before the water receded from the bay of Talcahuano. Then 

 the basin was emptied (dry, one writer says*) with great rapidity ; and seven minutes later, 

 wave after wave rolled inward in awful majesty. The front seemed a very wall of water, 

 higher than the mainmast of a ship which had been left on bare sands, where seven fathoms 

 water had flowed a little while before. Three times in, that terrible night could they hear the 

 roar of its advancing billows, the earth throbbing from moment to moment and each repetition 

 adding to the terrors of the half-clad people. All human feelings seemed paralyzed under the 

 influence of the panic : parents thought neither of children nor of their partners in life ; and 

 even priests gave not absolution to the terrified wretches around them, who supposed the day of 

 final retribution had come. With morning came knowledge of the destitution in which they 

 had been left : houses, furniture, clothing, all had been borne away by the treacherous sea; and 

 the multitude stood in their slight garments, shivering in the cold of an autumn storm. 



* Gay. Historia de Chile. Documentos, Tom. II. 



