296 
NATURE 
[ JANUARY 24, 1907 
THE KINGSTON EARTHQUAKE. 
\7 HEN Port Royal was destroyed by the great 
earthquake of 1692, some of the surviving 
inhabitants took refuge on ships, others moved across 
the haven to a place called Kingstown or Killscown, 
where, in huts made of boughs, exposed to the heavy 
rains and in close proximity to hundreds of dead 
bodies in the bay, they ‘‘ died miserably in heaps.”’ 
Port Royal was rebuilt and maintained as a naval 
station; its successor, as a place of business, was 
founded the following year at Kingston, and by the 
earthquake of January 18 has now met with a 
similar, though fortunately less complete, destruc- 
tion. 
The two earthquakes differed considerably in 
intensity. In 1692 the whole island suffered. 
Secarcely a house in any part of it was left standing. 
By numerous land-slips, the mountains were stripped 
of vegetation and altered in form. The earthquake 
of that year was one of the first order of magnitude. 
The most remarkable fact about the recent shocls is 
the very limited area of damage. Kingston seems to 
have suffered most severely. The more important 
buildings are ruined, and few, if any, houses have 
escaped some injury. Port Royal, six miles to the 
south, and St. Andrew, within five miles to the 
north, have shared to a great extent in the ruin, but 
outside a radius of ten or twelve miles from Kingston 
the loss to property is small. Some houses in Spanish 
Town, eleven miles to the west, are said to be 
damaged, while Port Antonio, twenty-eight miles to 
the north-east, and Holland Bay, thirty-eight miles 
to the east, are almost unharmed. i r 
From the small area of excessive damage and from 
the rapid decline in the intensity of the shock, it may 
be inferred that the focus was situated close to 
Kingston and at no great depth below the surface. 
Partly to the proximity of the focus, partly also to 
the sandy or gravelly nature of the ground (for. earth- 
quakes are always more strongly felt on loose, friable 
beds than on hard, compact rock), we must attribute 
the destructive energy of the shock. That, in its 
initial power, the earthquake was inferior to those 
of Valparaiso and San Francisco is clear from the 
smallness of the. meizoseismal area, and also from 
the comparatively: slight disturbances recorded at 
the: observatories of Washington, Shide, and Edin- 
burgh. 
The onset of the shock was sudden, there being no 
warning tremors or sound. For thirty-six seconds 
the motion was like that felt on a ship in a choppy | 
sea. All observers agree that the movement was 
chiefly vertical. It is said that objects jumped from 
the ground, and this, if it be true, shows how violent 
was the shock and how close was Kingston to the 
focus. In many places the ground is fissured, the 
electric-tram rails are twisted, and the water-supply 
pipes are partially damaged—all indications of a 
neighbouring focus. The direct line of cable to Colon 
is broken about three miles from the shore, pointing 
either to a displacement of the ocean-bed or to a 
submarine land-slide—probably to the latter, for there 
were no marked seismic sea-waves on the south side 
of the island,’ and the shipping in the roadstead and 
harbour are unharmed. The subsidence of the battery 
at Port Royal and the sinking of the shore at 
Kingston show that the superficial beds, at any rate, 
have undergone important changes of level. 
Whether these changes be due to bodily displace- 
1 A so-called ‘‘ tidal’ wave was observed on the north side of the island. 
It is said that Anotta Bay was inundated and that houses were swept 
away. No time is mentioned, and, if the sea-waves were of seismic origin, 
we should expect to hear of similar reports from Port Antonio and other 
adjoining harbours. 
NO. 1943, VOL. 75] 
ments of the crust, to mere shifting of the surface- 
beds or to both is by no means clear. When the 
island was surrendered to English forces in 1655, the 
spit, called the Palisadoes, which now terminates in 
Port Royal, was discontinuous, and the end re- 
sembled one of the quays or small islands outside 
the harbour. By 1692 the gap was bridged by a bar 
of sand. During the earthquake of that year a por- 
tion of the spit, a quarter of a mile in length, 
suddenly subsided, so that only the chimneys or upper 
parts of houses that were not overthrown appeared 
above the water. The harbour of Port Royal also 
sank, so that the streets along the harbour-side 
afterwards lay at a depth of from four to eight 
fathoms. Yet the depression of the ground itself at 
Port Royal and in other places was not supposed 
to exceed a foot. 
There can be no doubt from the evidence above 
described that the seismic focus was situated, in part 
at least, almost vertically below the haven between 
Kingston and Port Royal, though a portion of it may 
have extended as far as three miles to the south of the 
coast. It is also probable that the Port Royal and 
Kingston earthquakes originated roughly within the 
same focus. 
The West Indian region is distinguished by those 
steep surface-gradients which characterise areas of 
great instability. Jamaica, in common with Porto 
Rico and the south of Haiti, lies along a crust- 
ridge, which towards the west is prolonged into the 
mountains of Honduras, while it is separated from a 
corresponding ridge, constituting the island of Cuba, 
by the submarine depression of the Bartlett deeps. 
To the east, the Jamaican and Cuban arcs unite in 
one main ridge which bends round to overlap the 
curved line followed by the volcanic islands of the 
Lesser Antilles. These form the north and east 
boundaries of the great deeps of the Caribbean Sea. 
On the south lie the mountain ranges of Venezuela, 
&c., which, as we know from the destructive earth- 
quakes of Cumana in 1799 and 1853 and of Caracas in 
1812, ‘are still in the stage of vigorous growth. 
Towards the west, and connected with the West 
Indian series, are the central American chains, also 
studded with volcanoes, and in parts frequently visited 
by violent earthquakes. In this West Indian region, 
as elsewhere, it is not unlikely that the mountain 
arcs have a tendency to press forward on their outer 
and convex side, and to subside towards the interior 
of the arcs. The movements along the line of the 
Lesser Antilles certainly suggest a slipping westwards 
into the Caribbean deeps. In Jamaica, along the 
northern boundary of that sea, the movement may be 
more complex, the northern side of the Jamaican 
ridge having a tendency to move northwards and 
forwards towards the Bartlett deeps, while on the 
a continued 
south there is subsidence and_ slip- 
ping towards the Caribbean Sea. Of such in- 
termittent slips, the Port Royal and Kingston 
earthquakes appear to be some of the latest manifest- 
ations. 
So far as I am aware, there is no evidence of that 
intense crushing that was so conspicuous a feature 
of, say, the Japanese earthquake of 1891. Extension 
rather than compression was manifested in 1692, for 
at Port Royal one whole street, in which many houses 
were left standing, was said to have been doubled in 
width by the earthquake. There is much evidence to 
favour such a view in the case of the Kingston earth- 
quake—the extremely local character of the destruc- 
tive shock, the snapping of the cable to the south, 
and the minor character of the disturbances registered 
by distant seismographs. 
Cuartes Davison. 
