GREAT EARTHai AKE. 45 



one which a party of fugitive royalists had cut 

 down fourteen years ago ; and, taking this as a cri- 

 terion, I should think a boll a foot and a half in 

 diameter would in thirty years be changed into a 

 heap of mould. 



February 20th. — This day has been memorable 

 in the annals of Valdivia for the most severe earth- 

 quake experienced by the oldest inhabitant. I 

 happened to be on shore, and was lying down in 

 the wood to rest myself It came on suddenly, 

 and lasted two minutes, but the time appeared 

 much longer. The rocking of the ground was 

 very sensible. The undulations appeared to my 

 companion and myself to come from due east, 

 whilst others thought they jjroceeded from south- 

 west : this shows how difficult it sometimes is to 

 perceive the direction of the vibrations. There 

 was no difficulty in standing upright, but the mo- 

 tion made me ahnost giddy : it was something like 

 the movement of a vessel in a little cross-ripple, or 

 still more like that felt by a person skating over 

 thin ice, which bends under the weight of his body, 



A bad earthquake at once destroys our oldest 

 associations : the earth, the very emblem of solid- 

 ity, has moved beneath our feet like a thin crust 

 over a fluid ; one second of time has created in the 

 mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of 

 reflection would not have produced. In the forest, 

 as a breeze moved the trees, I felt only the earth 

 tremble, but saw no other effect. Captain Fitz 

 Roy and some officers were at the town during 

 the shock, and there the scene was more striking ; 

 for although the houses, from being built of wood, 

 did not fall, they were violently shaken, and the 

 boards creaked and rattled together. The people 

 rushed out of doors in the greatest alarm. It is 

 these accompaniments that create that perfect hor- 



