A MIGHTY SEA-WAVE, 185 



As to the height of the great wave along this part of the 

 shore-line of South America, the accounts vary. According 

 to those which are best authenticated, it would seem as 

 though the wave exceeded considerably in height that which 

 flowed along the Peruvian, Bolivian, and Chilian shores in 

 August, 1868. At Huaniles the wave was estimated at sixty 

 feet in height, at Mexillones, where the wave, as it passed 

 southwards, ran into Mexillones Bay, it reached a height of 

 sixty-five feet. Two-thirds of the town were completely 

 obliterated, wharves, railway stations, distilleries, etc., all 

 swallowed up by the sea. 



The shipping along the Peruvian and Bolivian coast 

 suffered terribly. The list of vessels lost or badly injured at 

 Pabellon de Pica alone, reads like the list of a fleet 



I have been particular in thus describing the effects 

 produced by the earthquake and sea-wave on the shores of 

 South America, in order that the reader may recognize in 

 the disturbance produced there the real origin of the great 

 wave which a few hours later reached the Sandwich Isles, 

 5000 miles away. Doubt has been entertained respecting 

 the possibility of a wave, other than the tidal-wave, being 

 transmitted right across the Pacific. Although in August, 

 1868, the course of the great wave which swept from 

 some region near Peru, not only across the Pacific, but in 

 all directions over the entire ocean, could be clearly traced, 

 there were some who considered the connection between the 

 oceanic phenomena and the Peruvian earthquake a mere 

 coincidence. It is on this account perhaps chiefly that the 

 evidence obtained in May, 1876, is most important It is 

 interesting, indeed, as showing how tremendous was the dis- 

 turbance which the earth's frame must then have undergone. 

 It would have been possible, however, had we no other 

 evidence, for some to have maintained that the wave which 

 came in upon the shores of the Sandwich Isles a few hours 

 after the earthquake and sea disturbance in South America 

 was in reality an entirely independent phenomenon. But 

 when we compare the events which happened in May, 1876, 



