THE PERUVIAN TIDAL WAVE. 287 



product of a great submarine upheaval, attended by a vibration of the 

 earth over a vast area. The point of upheaval is thought to have been in 

 latitude 22° west, and a short distance off the South American coast, about 

 5,500 miles south of San Francisco, and the time half-past 8 p. m. on the 9th 

 of May. The wave traversed this distance in ten hours, reaching San Fran- 

 cisco about half-past 6 a. m. on the 10th, showing that it traveled at the rate 

 of 550 miles an liour. It reached the coast of ISTew South Wales, about 

 5,000 miles off, at 5:20 a. m. on the 11th, ajjparently a day later than it ar- 

 rived at San Francisco ; but as iSTew South "Wales is in longitude 150° east 

 there is a day lost between the two places, and it is ^^robable that an accu- 

 rate calculation would show that its arrival in the two jjlaces was nearly 

 simultaneous. Its most marked effect was on the Peruvian and Chilian, 

 coast, where there was first a violent tremor of the earth and next an influx 

 of the wave, which rose to the height of forty to fifty feet. At Valparaiso 

 it exhibited Itself at half-past 9 on the evening of the 9th, showing that the 

 point of upheaval was about 550 miles north of that place. It is probable 

 the whole Pacific Ocean shared in the disturbance." 



The San Francisco Chronicle says : As yet the center of disturbance 

 which produced the wave in the Pacific that destroyed Iquique on the 10th 

 ult. is not ascertained. The direction from which it came may perhaps be 

 determined by calculations from its time of reaching ^different places on 

 the Peruvian, Californian and Sandwich Island coasts; and from the height 

 to which it rose at different localities, especially on different sides of the 

 Hawaiian group, where the variation of height was from 4 to 36 feet. 

 Prof. Davison, of San Francisco, keeps a record of the height of the sea 

 at that port by instrumental means, and he finds that the disturbance last- 

 ed for three and a half days after it began on the 10th nit., and that there 

 was in particular a second shock ten or twelve hours after the first. About 

 2 or 3 a. m. on the 11th a shock of earthquake was felt in Perthshire, Scot- 

 land. 



A correspondent of the Christian Union named S. Coan writes to that 

 paper as follows : In February the whole kingdom of Hawaii was thrown 

 into consternation by the eleventh and most remarkable of all Pele's erup- 

 tions, — Pele being the goddess of the volcano. In May a great tidal wave 

 prolonged her agony. Of the latter, news has just come. Though the 

 wave swept the shores of the entire group, it did the most damage at 

 Hilo. Hiio, as the largest settlement on the island of Hawaii, always suf- 

 fers the most on such occasions. On the 10th of May, at four o'clock in 

 the morning, the waters of the bay began to rise and fall abnormally. At 

 five o'clock they hurled themselves upon the shore to a distance of one 

 hundred yards. In a moment the wharf, the warehouses, the shops, the 

 native huts, the lumber piles, and a bridge that spanned a river tributaiy 

 to the bay, were wiped out of existence. 



The wide sand belt that girts the beautiful bay lies in a semi-circle. 



