THE NEW MADRID EARTHQUAKE 57 



A careful microscopical study of these sands confirms this impres- 

 sion. Under the microscope we find them to be made up of varying 

 mixtures of small, beautiful, rounded, incoherent, water-worn grains 

 of quartz, ranging from limpid or pellucid to perfectly transparent, 

 glass-like particles. Occasionally, rounded grains of red, yellow, 

 or black jasper occur, and in all samples fragments of lignite are 

 seen. The samples studied were obtained from the artesian wells 

 at Memphis, the small springs scattered over the district, the fault 

 scarps, and many localities throughout the whole sunken area. The 

 apparent identity of the surface and artesian sands is very plain. 



Source of sand covering surface 0} "sunk area." — Testimony from 

 various witnesses establishes the source of much of the sand dis- 

 tributed over this area. Eliza Bryan, of New Madrid, in a letter 

 to Lorenzo Dow, dated March 22, 18 16, speaks of the awful dark- 

 ness of the atmosphere, which was saturated with sulphurous vapor, 

 and of the fact that during all the hard shocks the earth seemed 

 horribly torn to pieces, while the surface of hundreds of acres was 

 from time to time covered over, for various depths, with the sand 

 that issued from the numerous fissures. She says: "Some of these 

 fissures closed up immediately after they had vomited forth sand 

 and water. What seemed to be coal was thrown up with the sand 

 in some places." A. N. Dillard, of New Madrid, stated to Professor 

 J. W. Foster that the shocks continued from twenty to thirty months, 

 and that in every instance the motion was from the west or southwest. 

 He said: "Fissures would be formed from 600 to 700 feet long, and 

 20 to 30 feet wide, through which water and sand spouted 40 feet high." 1 



Mr. Timothy Flint published in his Book of Recollections that "a 

 tract near Little Prairie, now called Caruthersville, became covered 

 with water 3 or 4 feet deep, and when the water disappeared there 

 remained a stratum of sand." Further, that "there were two classes 

 of shocks — those in which the motion was horizontal, and those in 

 which it was perpendicular." 



In the description by Godfrey LeSieur, given on a previous page, 

 attention is called to the large volume of water, sand, and coal that 

 was thrown up. Dr. Hildreth, in Wetmore's Gazetteer of Missouri, 

 states that — 



1 Italics are the writer's. 



