"EARTHQUAKE DISTURBS SLUMBER 



"About 1 o'clock Saturday Morning — Felt All 



Along Mississippi. 



"Half the population in Alton was aroused 

 soon after 1 a. m. Saturtlay, October 23, 1909, 

 bv an earthquake shock said to have been more 

 severe than that which startled St. Louis and 

 its vicinity several weeks ago. The earthquake 

 was not local, reports saying- that it was felt 

 as far south as Paragould, Ark., and was par- 

 ticularly severe at Cape Girardeau, Mo., where 

 it was "the heaviest shock felt for many years. 

 Heavy rumbling accompanied the quake. The 

 quake was felt in Cape Girardeau at 1:15 a. m., 

 lasting about a minute. The vibration came 

 from the west. The ground seemed to undulate 

 and buildings rocked. Paragould reports a 

 shock lasting 10 seconds; at the same time 

 Memphis, Tenn., also felt a slight shock. At 

 St. Peters, Mo., in St. Charles county, the 

 earthquake was felt plainly by several. Alton 

 appears to have borne the brunt of the dis- 

 turbance in the vicinity of St. Louis. Many 

 persons declare the walls of their houses quiv- 

 ered perceptibly and the ground heaved. W. T. 

 Norton, former postmaster of Alton, said he 

 felt three shocks, the first of which awakened 

 liim. The shocks were several seconds apart, 

 Mr. Norton said, and all of a brief duration. 

 They seemed to pass from west to east, but 

 Norton described them as being mostly up and 

 down. 



"An alarm clock which Emil Mook, an Alton 

 printer, had on a table beside his bed was 

 shaken" to the floor by the disturbance. 



"Towns in southeast Missouri other than 

 Cape Girardeau where the shock was felt dis- 

 tinctly are Sikeston and Charleston. The 

 report from Sikeston says all the inhabitants 

 were aroused by the severity of the tremor, 

 while in Charleston many persons were 

 awakened. Charleston reports that the earth- 

 quake lasted one minute. 



"Cairo, 111, felt the shock at 1:08 a. m. for 

 about 15 seconds. Many persons were awakened 

 by the shaking of their houses and the rumbling 

 sound. 



"Cairo, Memphis, Cape Girardeau, Charleston, 

 Sikeston, and Paragould are in the area chiefly 

 affected bv the great New Madrid Earthquake 

 of 1811, which caused a large territory in south- 

 east Missouri and northeast Arkansas and 

 across the Mississippi to become Swamp Lands." 



Again I clipped from our paper, The Sikeston 

 Standard, the following item. 



KENNETT HAD A CHILL. 



Several in this city felt a distinct earthquake 

 shock Monday at 11 o'clock that lasted a quar- 

 ter of a minute. It was especially noticeable In 

 the brick buildings. One lady said that the 

 pereformance was repeated Monday night, taut 

 few of Kennett's people stay awake late at 

 night. — Kennett Democrat. 



Since writing this near four years' experience 

 of mine in "Swampeast" Missouri, the home of 

 the New Madrid E'earthquake of 1811-12, and 

 before the publication of it there has been 

 another quite severe earthquake shock and I 

 herewith give the newspaper account of it as 

 published by the Southeast Missourian, a paper 

 at Portageville, Mo. : 



DID YOU FEEL IT? 



At just 5:15 o'clock Wednesday morning one 

 of the hardest earthquakes in a number of 

 years was felt bv quite a number of Portage- 

 ville citizens. The editor can't say truthfully 

 that he did not feel it because it tossed him 

 about in his bed, rattled the windows and mum- 

 bled louder than any big freight train. In Mr. 

 Christian's house, we are told, it stopped his 

 clock. It was of a few seconds duration, but a 

 mighty hard spasm old mother earth had at 

 Portageville." 



The date above referred to was January 29th, 

 1913. 



These happenings so stirred my desire for 

 more Information that I began to correspond 

 with leading colleges as to where I could get 

 full information as to the New Madrid Earth- 

 quake of 1811-12 and was referred to the Jour- 



nal of Geology, published by the University at 

 Chicago Press, and in their January-February 

 number, 1905, I found a very complete article 

 by Edward M. Shephard, Springfield, Mo. ; also, 

 in the American Geologist, published at Minne- 

 apolis, Minn., I found an article by &. C. Broad- 

 head. Then at last I wrote the United States 

 Geological Survey of our Department of the 

 Interior, and they mailed to me BULLETIN No. 

 491: THE NEW MADRID EARTHQUAKE, by 

 M>ron L. Fuller. This is a book of some 120 

 pages and replete with valuable information 

 for anyone thinking of making a home in this 

 "Earthquake Zone" or of acquiring property 

 therein. 



You owe it to yourself and your family to 

 know the country, as far as it is given us power 

 to know, the dangers that exist in that country 

 from forest fires, tornadoes, floods, volcanoes 

 and earthquakes, wherein you would take them 

 to live, for where you live you wish to feel as 

 safe and secure from these dangers as It is 

 possible to be — that breeds contentment and a 

 desire to live and build for the future. But 

 where dangers of floods exist — where tornadoes 

 and cyclones prevail to a greater extent — where 

 you are told by leading geologists that you are 

 living on one of the "Earth's Weak Spots," a 

 different feeling exists, and where these state- 

 mehts are backed up by frequent "shakes," as 

 the papers have quoted and I have copied 

 herein, you would do well to "Stop — Look and 

 Listen" before getting tied up there. I do not 

 wish to burden this booklet with copying much 

 of detailed reports therein, like this Bulletin 

 494. issued by the U. S. Geological Survey, for 

 you can get one and study it for yourself, the 

 same as I have, but I will call your especial 

 attention to a few of the different parts of it, 

 by pages, so that you can readily refer to what 

 I think important for one to know that is figur- 

 ing on either buying property here or coming 

 to handle the plow over these "sand blows," 

 "sink-holes," filled in "fissures" and other 

 markings of the greatest earthquake upheaval 

 and depression known to civilized man. Page 7 

 gives a location of the earthquake, which is 

 very important, in that it locates for you where 

 the' earthquake did the most damage. Page 9 

 carries with it a map of the district and sets 

 out for you where the sand blows were the 

 most pronounced, where the greatest sinking 

 of the land took place and where the domes 

 were formed. I think this plate or map a very 

 valuable one for a person to have that is con- 

 templating settling in this country or of pur- 

 chasing property here. Pages 10 and 11 give a 

 graphic account of the disaster and is very in- 

 teresting reading. I often thought that I would 

 be most willing to be present at a repetition 

 of the disaster, were it possible to do so. until 

 I read these accounts and thought how it would 

 lie to be routed out about the middle of Decem- 

 ber, 2 a, m.. and stand shivering in the cold 

 the rest of the night with the fear of being 

 swallowed up by the earth at any moment. 

 Page 12 gives Indian tradition of previous dis- 

 turbances of this country by earthquakes and 

 also corroborative evidence that they did occur. 

 Pages 14 and 15 give the location of the center 

 of the disturbance and locates it about 16 miles 

 to the west of the Mississippi River. Page 16 

 is a very important one in that it gives the 

 area of "the disturbance, which of the most 

 marked disturbance, such as domes, sunk lands, 

 fissures, sinks, sand blows, landslides, etc., 

 comprised from 30,000 to 50,000 square miles 

 and extended from a point west of Cairo on 

 the north to the latitude of Memphis on the 

 south, a distance of about 100 miles, and from 

 Crowlev's ridge on the west to Chickasaw Bluffs 

 on the" east, a distance of over 50 miles, then 

 the area of sleight earth disturbances and also 

 the area of tremors. Page 17 records the "Gen- 

 eral Destructiveness of the Shocks" and reads 

 something like a modern day write-up of a 

 powder mill explosion without the attendant 

 fatalities. On page 21 you will find what the 

 earthquake did to the roads of the country. 

 Pages 31 and 32 give accounts of the nature of 

 the vibrations and make very interesting read- 

 ing. On page 34 is given the number of re- 



