1 08 EARTHQUAKES. 



surmise so soon proved a reality, notwithstanding positive assurance that we could have no fore- 

 knowledge of terrestrial or meteorological events, even intimate friends were skeptical. Cer- 

 tain it was, that season at Santiago had proved unlike any in the memory of man. Rains in 

 December! thunder-storms, and deaths by lightning in the heart of the city! clouds on more 

 than half the nights ! all were associated with our presence ; and the populace firmly believed 

 that we not only officially announced the coming earth-storm to government, but specially pre- 

 pared for its observation. 



MARCH 24, 1851. 



After the severe shock of December, there were a number (twelve) minor ones, of interest 

 only to keep us reminded of the great laboratory beneath, and of man's helplessness. Some 

 weeks had elapsed without one of these memory-joggers, when, to sharpen our recollections, 

 quite an old-fashioned shake occurred soon after midnight of the 24th March. I had just 

 extinguished the night lamp, when the first unmistakable rumble reached me. Wide 

 awake, not even wrapped up for the night, and desirous to note everything presented during 

 the phenomenon, my motions were by no means slow; and, thanks to that universal 

 blessing lucifer matches I do not think four seconds had elapsed before I was on foot, in a 

 dressing gown, the lamp re-lighted, and my watch in hand. It is wonderful what celerity is 

 imparted to one's motions at such times, and with what "hot haste'' even apathetic Cljilenos, 

 yet half sleeping, hurry to the patios or streets. Quick as I had been, however, the street- 

 doors of all our neighbors had been flung open, and their exclamations could be heard. Slowly 

 and uniformly the noise approached from the northward, increasing in violence as it drew 

 nearer ; until, at the end of seven seconds, it was perfectly awful. At this time there was a 

 very gentle and slow though unmistakable undulation, and all was over ; even the roar seeming 

 to die away of a sudden. The mail of next day brought intelligence that a similar shock had 

 been experienced at Valparaiso ; where, also, the origin of the earth-wave was supposed to have 

 been to the northward. 



APRIL 2. 



For several days previously the sky had been unusually overcast, the barometer fluctuating 

 as it does during winter rain-storms. Not far from 9 o'clock, on the night of the 1st, 

 there was a vivid, quick flash of lightning to the N.N.E., so intense in brightness as to 

 illuminate within the observatory, where I had been at work some hours. I was startled by 

 the sudden brilliancy, and listened for close-following thunder, but no sound came ; neither was 

 the flash repeated, nor was there the smallest speck of cloud even about the horizon in that 

 direction.* Coming down the hill, about midnight, my left eye was found to be injured by over- 

 exertion ; and the pain which soon followed brought on nervous restlessness that kept me awake 

 several hours. Sleep, long courted, came so profoundly at last, that when nature, in wrath, 

 was shaking the city on its foundations, and a startled population fled with cries of terror, 

 though roused by the incipient shock, nearly half its violence had passed before full conscious- 

 ness returned. Habit brought me instantly to the floor, watch in hand, and in such a position 

 that I could embrace, at a glance, the roofs across the street, a little mirror directly in front, 

 and the wash-stand diagonally to the right. But reason was torpid. Though there was a con- 

 sciousness of excessive oscillation of the floor, and most infernal subterranean roarings ; a recogni- 

 tion that the pictures of the paper on the opposite wall were waving from side to side across the 

 mirror; a conviction that the roofs and tiles of the houses in front were "dancing like mad;" 



*Many of the most intelligent persons in Chile regard earthquakes as due wholly to electrical agency; and as we have no right to 

 reject popular belief until every phase of the phenomenon is satisfactorily explicable without such influence, it is proper that 

 the occurrence of such remarkable lightning so short a time before the shock, and in the direction from which it came should 

 not be omitted. For the eame reason Humboldt mentions ( Relation Historique. Liv. IV., Chap. 10) " two strong shocks simul- 

 taneously with a clap of thunder." 



