218 



EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS. 



that the earthquake was sent in punishment of 

 the sacrilege that had been committed in allowing 

 the performer to tie one end of his rope to the 

 church tower. 



A series of earthquake shocks were reported 

 from Guatemala on April 8, and on the night of 

 the 18th they were of such severity that they were 



BROKEN STATUE IN CHILPANCINOO, MEXICO. 



recorded by the seismograph in the Isle of Wight, 

 and might have been recorded in any part of the 

 world. It appears that on this night the Cordil- 

 leras of Central America were relieved of their 

 seismic strain; villages and towns were shat- 

 tered and earthquake waves passed over the 

 world, and other unusual phenomena were re- 

 corded. On April 23 Mont Pelee showed a plume 

 of smoke, and on May 3 it showed a fiery glow 

 at night from the incandescent lava within its 

 crater. There were low rumblings in the neigh- 

 boring island of St. Vincent, and its long-extinct 

 volcano, La Soufriere, began its eruptions two 

 days later. On May 8 a geyser or boiling lake 

 in Dominica, about 300 feet in length by 200 in 

 breadth, disappeared completely. About the same 

 time it was reported from Tacoma that Mount 

 Redoubt, Cook inlet, in the State of Washington, 

 was pouring forth dense volumes of smoke, and 

 that it had become luminous in the night. Vol- 

 canic ashes fell, and snow near the mountain 

 was covered with ashes. The last eruption of 

 Mount Redoubt occurred in 1867. On May 31 

 earthquake shocks were felt in various parts of 

 Greece. 



Lack of available means of transit compara- 

 tively shuts off Guatemala from the rest of the 

 world, and it was not till about the time the world 

 was horrified with the news of the eruption of 

 Mont Pelee and the wiping out of the city of St. 

 Pierre, as also that of La Soufrifre, that "definite 

 news came from the Central American republic 

 that its second largest and richest city, Quezal- 

 tenango, had been completely destroyed by an 

 earthquake, undoubtedly the one that had been 

 recorded on the Isle of Wight in the night of 

 April 18. Quezaltenango was a well-constructed 



city of many imposing edifices of lime and stone 

 construction, with an estimated population of 25,- 

 000 to 30,000 inhabitants. It is supposed by some 

 to have been built within the crater of an extinct 

 volcano, but this is doubtful, the belief having 

 originated from the fact that it is surrounded by 

 high, jagged mountain peaks at an elevation of 

 8,000 feet above the sea. The only reliable ac- 

 count of the seismic disturbances that shook the 

 Cordilleras and finally destroyed this city ap- 

 pears in a communication from Edwin Rockstroh, 

 a German for a long time in the employ of the 

 Guatemala Government as an engineer. He says 

 that at 8.25 P.M., April 18, an earthquake of more 

 than thirty seconds' duration affected a large part 

 of Guatemala, eastern Chiapas, and western 

 Salvador and Honduras. The intensity of the 

 movement was greatest in western Guatemala, 

 where the second and richest city of the country 

 was completely destroyed, with the loss of about 

 500 lives. The cities of Solola, San Marcos, and 

 its sister town, San Pedro Sacatepequez, were also 

 completely ruined, with a loss of more than 200 

 lives. Retaluheu and Mazatenango, important 

 towns on the Pacific coast plain to the south of 

 Quezaltenango were also ruined. The cities that 

 were most violently shaken were those on the 

 highlands a little north of the gr^at volcanoes 

 that rise in the vicinity of Quezaltenango. Be- 

 sides the cities named, nearly every town and 

 hamlet in the Department of San Marcos, Quezal- 

 tenango, Retalhueleu, and Suchitepequez, and 

 several in Chimaltenango, suffered, and nearly 

 every one of the many important coffee and sugar 

 plantations in the western coast regions had its 

 buildings, aqueducts, and machinery shattered. 

 At the port of Ocos only 3 houses remained 

 standing, and the pier extending into the sea was 

 broken in two. Later it was reported that Ocos 

 was sinking beneath the sea. The railways be- 

 tween Retalhueleu and the port of Champerico, 

 and the one between Ocos and Coatepec, were in- 

 terrupted by the falling of bridges and other 

 damage. Until May 5 earthquakes were frequent, 

 extending from Gualan, near the Atlantic coast, 

 to the west, near the Pacific. 



It was on the night of May 3 when Mont Pelee 

 began to throw large quantities of scoriae and 

 volcanic ash into the surrounding country, and 

 on May 5, two days later, a stream of lava rushed 

 down the mountainside, reaching the sea, 5 miles 

 distant, in three minutes, it is said. When the 

 red-hot stream met the sea the water receded 

 300 feet on the west coast of the island, returning 

 with great force. Two days later, May 7, a hot 

 blast from the volcano engulfed the town of St. 

 Pierre, destroying everything. Almost simultane- 

 ously with the outbreak of the Martinique vol- 

 cano occurred that of La Soufri&re, in St. Vin- 

 cent. 



Forming the arc of a circle, roughly speaking, 

 a string of islands extends around the western 

 border of the Caribbean Sea, from Porto Rico 

 to a point near the continent of South America. 

 The group begins with Saba on the north, and 

 ends with Grenada on the south, near the hiruv 

 ishuid of Trinidad. In this group lie the islands 

 of Martinique and St. Vincent. The islands ap- 

 pear from the sea like mountain peaks, and geol- 

 ogists tell us that they are merely ancient ash- 

 heaps over which time has weathered a soil and 

 moisture has nursed a luxuriant tropical vegeta- 

 tion. On all of the larger ones there are evidences 

 of their volcanic origin in the form of craters 

 and boiling springs; but, with the exception of 

 St. Vincent, none of them seemed to have suf- 

 fered from any severe eruptions since they were 



