COSTA RICA— VULCAN'S SMITHY 



505 



one; of The principal strkkts ia cakiai.o .a -livR ihk karthouake of may 4, 



I9I0 



darkness ; all means of communication 

 with the neighboring towns cut off. 



DR Anderson's fxpfrienck 



Dr Luis Anderson, a well-known 

 Costa Rican lawyer and statesman, who 

 left Washington a few weeks before, 

 after having won for his country fair 

 hopes of an equitable adjustment of a 

 long-disputed boundary question, writes : 



"I was just in the act of crossing the 

 street from one sidewalk to the other 

 when I felt something strange, like a 

 sensation of emptiness, for the descrip- 

 tion of which no words can be found. 

 At the same time an explosive noise, 

 comparable to the almost simultaneous 

 discharge of many rifles, filled the air. 

 I shut my eyes for one second, and when 

 I again opened them the utmost ob- 

 scurity enveloped me ; Cartago no longer 

 existed. I realized that all danger of 

 being crushed was past, since nothing 



had been left standing, but, at the same 

 time, I felt as though death would come 

 through asphyxiation. The violence of 

 the following oscillations was such that 

 I was thrown on the ground, where I 

 lay stretched for a while." 



Persons who were on their door-sills 

 or walking along on the narrow side- 

 walk tell how they were thrown into the 

 middle of the street, while still others 

 who were far from any falling wall were 

 thrown against these to a certain death. 



Dr Anderson soon realized the help- 

 lessness of the itricken city, and, failing 

 to obtain any quick means of transporta- 

 tion, started to walk the 10 miles to Tres 

 Rios, about l.alf way to San Jose, and 

 which he reached a little after 10 p. m. 

 There, after the Morse apparatus had 

 been extracted from under the ruins of 

 the telegra|)h office and reconnected, he 

 succeeded in wiring the appalling news 

 to the capital, which had had its share 



