Gov. Sargent’s account of an earthquake. 351 
geographical miles) they seem to have been most awful and tremen- 
dous—dismaying men and beasts.* Considerable of the country is 
said to be sunk and forming new lakes, banks of the Missisippi 
thrown down, one or two islands swallowed up, and the channel of 
the river materially changed, inhabitants moved, or moving off, or 
living in tents. Those earthquakes decreased in force from the Bluffs 
to this place, nor have they been repeated as between them and New 
Madrid. ‘The first, which was of as much magnitude as any that 
have occurred, was not felt twenty miles down the Missisippi upon 
the river, though it extended to Fort Stoddert, forty miles above Mo. 
bile Bay ; to Nash and Knoxville in Tennessee; Charleston, South 
Carolina; Richmond and Norfolk in Virginia; Baltimore in Mary- 
land; Louisville and all Kentucky ; Lake Erie; Cincinnati, state of 
Ohio; Vincennes, Territory of Indiana; St. Louis upon the Missi- 
sippi, and Nagadoches, which lies west northerly about two hundred 
miles distant. In many of these places the brick work of chimnies 
was affected—in some thrown down to a level with the tops of the 
houses, and a strong vibratory motion given to-every article suspend- 
ed, and that was free to move. In Charlestown, South Carolina, and 
at Natchitoches or Nagadoches the bells in their church steeples were 
rung by the motion of the buildings. This earthquake occurred at 
my house within one or two minutes of 2 o’clock, correct solar time, 
upon the morning of the 16th of December 1811; the brick floor of 
the basement story, which is six feet below the surface of the earth, 
was evidently agitated—furniture considerably jarred, and a bed in 
an east and west direction appeared to have a motion from north to 
south. A bed ina third story was more, but alike moved, and in the 
* Old trees, with their roots in the bed of hee river, were seen rising and 
sinking by the current, so as to resemble the motion in sawing. Planters are 
without motion, generally erect, and both dangerous to navigators. 
