112 Earthquake and rising of the sea coast of Chili. 



made and then closed by the earthquake ; it sometimes required two 

 persons to draw it up, and it was observed to swing with an extraor- 

 dinary vibration. A captain of a ship at San Antonia, forty leagues 

 from Valparaiso, observed immense quantities of dead fish of all kinds 

 floating, and the ship which was at some distance from the shore, 

 under weigh, was shaken as if she would fall to pieces, proving that 

 the movement was submarine. Rivulets of water, formerly running, 

 but now, on account of a drought almost dry, were made to flow 

 again, and exhausted springs became, on the second day, living 

 fountains. 



By this earthquake, a large part of Valparaiso was ruined ; chiefly 

 the part erected on the alluvial plain Almeadrall, while the houses 

 built upon solid ground or firm foundations, were much less injured. 

 Many hundred dead bodies were taken from the ruins. Towns and 

 villages, at the distance often, twelve and thirty leagues, were sen- 

 sibly affected ; the Andes and the country east of them, were agita- 

 ted, and it was supposed that one quarter of South America was 

 shaken. 



On the night of the great earthquake, meteors or blazing stars 

 and flakes of fire, are said to have been seen in the heavens ; one 

 very vivid meteor shot from the south west towards the south east. 

 Three deep and wide cracks were opened on the beach and many 

 others intersected mutually like the furrows of a ploughed field. 



In a little more than three hundred years. Chili has been visited 

 by eight* destructive earthquakes. In 1520, some villages were de- 

 stroyed in the southern provinces : in 1647 many houses in St. Jago 

 were ruined, and 1657 the greater part of that city was destroyed. 

 In 1730 the city of Conception was much injured ; the sea overflow- 

 ed its walls, and in May, 1751 , St. Jago was entirely destroyed togeth- 

 er with all the villages between the 34 and 40° of latitude. The 

 shock then came from the northward and was announced by a slight 

 movement and a ball of fire. In 1819 Copiaco was destroyed: in 

 1821 a place near Coquimbowas injured; and in 1822 Valparaiso, 

 Cassa Blanca and several other places were nearly ruined. 



The inhabitants of the country, received the impression that the 

 bitumen which greatly abounds there, and the electric fluid which 

 is very active in those regions, aided by internal fire were concern- 

 ed in producing the earthquake. It was afterwards ascertained that 



♦ Other very severe ones occurred in thai country lust year which nearly de- 

 stroyed Conception and other towns. — Ed. 



