CLIMATE. 43 



cracks in the earth. A larGje fissure was made in the western 

 part of the town of San Bernardino. At Fort Tejon the shock 

 threw down nearly all the buildings ; snapped off large trees 

 close to the ground, and overthrew others, tearing them up by 

 the roots ; and tore the earth apart in a fissure twenty feet 

 wide and forty miles long, the sides of which rent then came 

 together w4th so much violence, that the earth was forced up 

 in a ridge ten feet w^de and several feet high. At Reed's 

 ranch, not far from Fort Tejon, a house w^as thrown down, 

 and a woman in it killed. 



In September, 1812, on a Sunday, an earthquake threw 

 down the Mission Church at San Juan Capistrano, in latitude 

 33° 20', and thirty persons w^ere killed. The church at Santa 

 Inez, in Santa Barbara county, was thrown down on the same 

 day; but the shock, according to report, was an hour later 

 than that at San Juan Capistrano, and there was nobody in the 

 church when it fell. At the same time the sea receded a long 

 distance from the ordinary place of the water's edge on the 

 beach of Santa Barbara ; and the people there, knowing that 

 it would soon rush upon the shore, fled to the higher ground, 

 and by that means alone saved their lives. These reports 

 made about this earthquake of 1812, to Dr. J. B. Trask, by 

 old residents, have never been contradicted, though published 

 six or eight years ago. 



The old Mission Church at Santa Clara was thrown down 

 by an earthquake in 1818. On the 15th of May, 1851, a severe 

 shock was felt in San Francisco. Windows w^ere broken ; mer- 

 chandise was thrown down from shelves in stores ; and vessels 

 in the harbor rolled heavily. On the 26th of ISTovember, 1858, 

 nearly every brick building in San Jose was injured by an 

 earthquake. On the 3d of July, 1861, Amador valley, in Ala- 

 meda county, was severely shaken. Adobe houses were seri- 

 ously injured, chimneys toppled down, furniture was flung 

 from side to side of the houses and much broken, and men in 

 the fields were thrown dov/n. 



A severe shock of an earthquake was felt at Fort Yuma and 



