EARTHQUAKES. 113 



a quarter of a minute ; and others again were followed at very brief intervals, aa one or two 

 seconds, by other tremors. Some were preceded and accompanied by a rumbling noise, others 

 were wholly in silrnrr, ami there was more than one instance of noise without the leant percepti- 

 ble distlirlianrr. 



On tlu: following day I started for the purpose of examining the line of destruction in a 

 southerly direction, and soon found that the effects diminished as the plain widened. .Even at 

 the Maypu, 16 miles south of the city, had not attention been previously occupied, one would 

 not Kprrially have noticed crevices in the walls. Though the toll-receiver assured me he had 

 seen large masses of earth thrown down from the vertical banks, on the south side of the stream, 

 its bridge, with high abutments and supporting piers, was wholly uninjured. No crevicea 

 could be found in the banks near the bridge. 



On a line west of the latter, where the Maypu passes through the Central cordilleras, the 

 latter make a sudden bend eastward ; and the Andes at a nearly opposite point curving to 

 the westward, the two chains closely approach each other at a pass twenty miles south of the 

 stream, called the Estero de Payne. Indeed, the two chains of mountains, here about 2,000 

 feet above the plain, are separated by a gorge of the same level as the plain, whose average 

 width is not more than 100 yards. Thus, from the Cuesta de Chacabuco to the Angostura, 

 except where the Maypu passes through the central range, there is a continuous though irregu- 

 lar elliptic plain, whose diameters will not vary greatly from 55 and 25 miles. The widest 

 part of the basin or plain is where the Maypu crosses it in latitude 33 42', and here the high 

 road to the south seemed to be near the eastern line of injurious disturbance. Subsequently, 

 we learned by a traveller from Mendoza that a very slight though long tremor had been felt at 

 *lh. 10m., in that city, on the morning of the 2d. 



Proceeding toward the Angostura, from the Maypu, every quarter of a mile exhibited increase 

 in the extent of the injury done ; and within a league of it, the destruction was excessive. Not 

 only had houses, walls, and division lines been more completely destroyed than about the cap- 

 ital, but losses bad been more universal. Neither dimension nor material of wall had saved it; 

 those of adobe, 30 inches thick and extending round two sides of a parallelogram 125 feet each 

 way, were perhaps broken rather more frequently than short partitions, though not so much so 

 as masonry. In one case the back wall of an old store-house was lifted bodily to the north and 

 set down two inches from its former foundation ; whilst a short piece at right angles to it, 

 forming a sort of abutment to its eastern end, was shaken down piecemeal. The wall stood 

 nearly east and west, was of adobes eighteen inches thick, some 80 feet long and 9 feet high. 

 Nothing but the roof, itself partially sustained by the stakes of an outer corridor, prevented 

 the whole from going over. In the parlors to the mansion of this hacienda, things were thrown 

 in all directions : lamps, chairs, books, fell in every possible line, almost inducing belief that 

 the increasing resistance offered to the onward movement of the explosive agent by the rapidly 

 approaching mountains, had converted rectilineal into gyratory motion. These objects fell in 

 the several directions at different periods. 



At the time of the shock, the proprietor was in the fields giving orders for the work of the 

 day. Turning at the first rumble that reached his ear in the direction of the mansion, where 

 his wife and children were, he put spurs to his horse, which had not yet become frightened. But 

 an instant after, the poor brute suddenly stopped and spread out its feet, giving expression to 

 the utmost terror by deep-breathed snorts and starting eyes, nor could any punishment make 

 it move until the phenomenon had ceased. Apart from thoughts of his loved ones, this was 

 a trying interval to my friend. Alone, and all nature convulsed! The earth heaved and 

 trembled till foot-hold was not secure, its profoundly vaulted caverns pealing thunders stunning 

 to the ears ; the atmosphere was serene and balmy without a stirring breath, yet trees around 

 were waving and bending half way to the very soil as in a storm ; flocks of birds in rapid flight 

 screamed their sympathy ; and herds of cattle came tearing down the mountain sides, pursued 

 by great boulders of granite, mid clouds of dust and sparks of fire. 

 15 



