526 EARTHQUAKES IN CHILE. 



In the "Barra" we find the following incidents: Among the notable results we place the 

 varied expressions presented in the faces of the citizens who, without having accordance with 

 each other, think only of flight. If the houses had fallen, we should have been in the primi- 

 tive condition of society living as did Adam and Eve in Paradise. The number of those 

 wounded was great : broken legs, cracked heads, &c. In the house of Senor Serrano there 

 are no less than four. One was killed in the plaza by the fall of mouldings from the edifices. 

 At the residence of Senor Chacon, in the Calle San Diego, a poor man who had gone to ask 

 alms was killed by the fall of a tile. In the cathedral a heavy tie-beam fell, the stone 

 of which the edifice is built is much splintered, and that composing the arches settled. Two 

 arches of the portal have been broken, and the eastern parapet thrown to the ground. The 

 house opposite has had its roof settled and walls broken. 



[From " El Mercurio."] 



A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR. 



SANTIAGO, April 2, 1851. 



To-day there has been felt the most severe and prolonged earthquake experienced since that 

 of 1822. This phenomenon, which is the most terrible of nature, and which most depresses the 

 spirit by its mysterious magnitude, has left the population tremulous and excited, and the air 

 still appears filled with the murmur of a stroke as occurs with a cord that is violently vibrated, 

 and that prolongs its sound in proportion to the tension. 



The first shock, which was oscillatory, was felt at &h. 48m. 10s. A. M. mean time at Santiago, 

 as given by the Astronomical Observatory at Santa Lucia, which has for the base of its calcula- 

 tions a time-keeper regulated to the meridian of Greenwich. The greatest strength was felt 

 from 6&. 48m. 28s. to 6/i. 48m. 53s., and it terminated at 6/L 49m. 38s. Thus it was prolonged 

 nearly a minute and a half. 



The great shock, which took place at 6A. 48m. 28s., startled every one in terror from the 

 beds in which they slumbered tranquilly, but without any accident occurring. Others more 

 matutinal, who had roused themselves with the dawn, and were at the time making their orisons 

 to God at church, were victims to their devotion sealing their martyrdom with blood. At the 

 church of San Francisco, injured severely by the last earthquake, the fatality occurred. The 

 faithful who at that moment found themselves imploring the mercy of God, flew from its altars 

 before his anger, endeavoring to escape from one of its side doors. At the instant that the 

 motion of the earth had attained its maximum violence, a moulding broken from the arch 

 over the doorway fell upon the heads of three women who were passing the lintel ; one was 

 killed on the spot, and the others gravely wounded. 



Up to the moment of the mail leaving, no other misfortunes of a personal nature have been 

 heard of. 



All the houses of Santiago were sensibly moved, even to their very foundations ; the tiles 

 have been started, and there is no street in which fragments are not seen, thrown down by the 

 pulsations of the invisible power agitating the bowels of the earth. In the cathedral one of 

 the great beams crossing the roof has fallen from its place. At the old University and in the 

 Palace of Justice many arches have opened. At the Academy of Painting there may be seen 

 the fragments of a large part of the plaster models recently brought from France. The busts 

 have particularly suffered; and it is a painful spectacle to see the fragments of Diana's 

 head upon the floor ; the hair of Cleopatra filled with the dust of crushed models, and by her 

 side the beautiful bust of Antinous, which, in its destruction, appears the frozen fragment of a 

 corpse. A large part of the parapets of the portal have come to the ground, and from the walls 

 of the cathedral many stones have been started. 



Every moment news reaches us from the country that the destruction has been great. At the 



