CARTHAGO DELETA EST 479 



our ceiling ventilator we could see the sky between the ribs 

 of the roof. Plaster was cracked and in one room in the 

 hotel a whole side fell. In the storeroom, in drug stores and 

 crockery shops there was much breakage. A number of 

 churches lost corners or minarets or images; one had the 

 arches over the windows badly cracked and was no doubt 

 much weakened. The new, still unfinished Peace Palace 

 had one wall cracked and parts of the ornamental railing 

 around the roof thrown down. Seventeen poorly built 

 small houses were completely demolished as well as many 

 outstanding walls and outbuildings. No one was killed or 

 injured. 



P. returned from Atenas on the evening of the thirteenth, 

 reporting that the shocks were so slight there that he did 

 not think it worth while to get up. As Atenas is only thirty 

 miles away the extremely local character of these earth- 

 quakes is apparent. 



In the twenty-four hours after the first shock, I counted 

 thirty well-marked and distinct earthquakes, by "coffee" 

 on the fourteenth, thirty-five. Between these were many 

 little tremors whose beginning and end could not be felt. 

 Earthquakes continued until we left for Juan Viiias on April 

 24, with gradually decreasing intensity and frequency. For 

 five nights following the thirteenth we dared not undress, 

 but took such rest as we could on mattresses on the floor and 

 later on a bed in a patio covered with galvanized iron, which 

 we all supposed safe. How little we knew! 



After thirty-six hours of earthquakes the town was on the 

 edge of hysteria. The wildest rumors circulated — Poas 

 and Irazii were in eruption (though we could not see how 

 anybody could believe that Irazia could be in eruption and 

 no one in Cartago either see, hear or smell it) — the vol- 

 canoes in Chiriqui were in eruption — the tail of the comet 

 (Halley's comet, which was visible about noon on the 



