394 On the Harthquake in Chile, 1851. 
habitable, and more than that number of people without any 
shelter whatever; and in short the residents remembered no such 
earthquake since 1822. Even those whose houses had not been 
seriously injured in many cases took refuge on board ships; 
others fled to the hills, and others again erected tents and wooden 
shanties in the plazas. The hotels, principally occupied by 
e 
water forthwith. It was especially remarkable, at Valparaiso, 
that the honses built on the sandy foundation of the Almendral 
were far more injured than those on the narrow rocky ledge of 
the port. . Though the injuries had been greatest to those whose 
walls stood in a NE and SW line, no direction had proved a safe- 
guard; and, as at Casablanca, every one in the Almendral had 
been broken. 
Judging by a line in which a cross was thrown from the steeple 
of La Matriz church, and the place at which part of a marble 
fountain in the Plaza Victoria was left, the direction of the earth- 
wave must have been from NE-by-N to SW-by-S, the cross 
having been thrown nearly twenty feet from the body of the 
edifice in the former direction, and the vase of the fountain jolted 
on its pedestal two inches towards the latter point.* No lives 
were lost, nor were any serions wounds received, the hour of the 
day and long interval of warning having given people a chance 
to escape to the streets and patios. ‘The family of one friend in 
the Almendral had been in agonizing tribulation. At the first 
tremor, the door of their chamber was permanently secured by 
the sinking of the ceiling; and they found themselves wholly 
unable to escape to the rescue of their children, occupying an 
apartment on the opposite side of the patio. Cries from the 
that their children were safe. — 
Of eighteen shocks recorded at Santiago before midnight of 
the 2nd, some occurred whilst the assistants were at work 
Santa Lucia, and of these they distinctly recognised the warning 
noise to the NE, in one instance, full fifteen seconds before the 
earth under foot was in motion. Most of them were slight: 
some lasted only a second or two; others continued nearly @ 
quarter of a minute; and others again were followed at very 
brief intervals, as one or two seconds, by other tremors. Some 
ain : * Personally verified. — 
