EARTHQUAKES. <VJ 



ground of the vicinity afforded numerous instances of the convulsions it had undergone. Cleft* 

 above a foot wide presented themselves at the distance of every few yards, and in several place* 

 the surface had sunk two feet below its previous level. On many spots there were hillocks of 

 sand and mud, which had been forced through the fissures, and looked like miniature volcanoes. 

 Some of these had again sunk, leaving in their places muddy pools ; and at other points there 

 were little lakes formed by the overflow of the sea, or by collapse of the banks of the streams, 

 by which the old channels had been filled up and the current forced in a new direction. 



Rain, never before known in the month of November, descended upon them on the night of 

 the 27th, whilst yet the majority were bivouacked on the hills. Had it not ceased by morning, 

 not only would it have destroyed all their property, but famine and disease must have followed, 

 to complete their wretchedness. Mr. Miers says (though he evidently did not see it) that the 

 meteor seen in the southward about half-past 2 o'clock on the morning after the shock, was 

 nearly as large as the moon ; that it left a long train of light behind ; and that, though it 

 visibly exploded, there was no noise distinguishable, nor were any stones known to fall from it. 



The violence of the shock was greater at San Felipe than at Santiago ; at the latter city than 

 at Rancagua ; and in the province of Colchagua it was extremely slight. It was 'however, 

 felt from Copiapo to Valdivia certainly as far east as Mendoza, and some even say at Cordova, 

 in longitude 64. From the fact that the inland towns, though severely shaken and much 

 damaged, were not overthrown like Valparaiso and those of its more immediate vicinity, it waa 

 argued that the centre of the shock was out at sea, somewhat to the southward of the latter 

 city. Remarkable as was its extent, it appears to have left no less extraordinary evidences of 

 its force ; for all the line of coast, fifty miles in extent about Valparaiso, was raised nearly 

 three feet above its former level.* One writerf states, that on the day preceding the first 

 shocks, myriads of dead and dying fish were seen covering the water near Valparaiso and San 

 Antonio. In the Journal of Science, Vol. XVII, it is said : "At the moment the shock was felt, 

 two volcanoes in the neighborhood of Valdivia (where the earthquake was pretty sharp) burst 

 out suddenly with great noise, illuminated the heavens and the surrounding country for a few 

 seconds, and as suddenly subsided into their quiescent state." And the writer of the article 

 "Chile" in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, informs us that the volcano of Maypu had frequent 

 eruptions after it. For several succeeding weeks the number of tremors was unusually great, 

 and for months the inhabitants never went to their beds with confidence. 



1829. 



In the " Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science" for 1851, Mr. Bol- 

 laert comments as follows on a letter from Valparaiso, giving him some account of the earth- 

 quake of April 2d of that year : "I was also in that of 1829, being (then) injSantiago. The 

 commotion commenced on Saturday, 26th of September, at twenty minutes past 2 p. M. The 

 principal undulation appeared to come from S.E. The great shock was 1 minutes' duration. 

 Half an hour afterwards there was a shower of rain, and another slight shower at half-past 4 

 P. M. The weather, however, before the earthquake, was rather inclined for rain. During the 

 night of the 26th there were slight shocks ; also some on the following days, Sunday and Mon- 

 day. On Friday, October 1, at half-past 12 there was another shock, as well as at half-past 1. 

 I went out into the street and found the inhabitants looking at two volcanoes that had broken 

 out one in the Dehesa, behind the first range of the cordilleras ; the other in the mountains 

 of Maypu (which last was observed to be in activity just after the earthquake of the 26th), the 

 smoke rising majestically. "J 



* Messrs. Graham and Miers assert this; but the fact is denied by Cuming, a conchologist then also at Valparaiso: Geological 

 Trans., Vol. V, second series. 



t Schmidtmeyer. 



; After writing the foregoing, I addressed a letter to an intelligent friend at Santiago, from whose reply the following extracts are 

 made: 



" 1st. No one remembers having either seen or beard of any eruption of any volcano in Chile coincident with the earthquake 



