CHAP. XXXIIL] SAND-BURSTS. 175 



chasms opened, and new islands appeared in the Mississippi and 

 its tributaries. Flint, the geographer, who visited the country 

 seven years after the event, says that, at the time of his visit, 

 a district west of New Madrid still remained covered with water, 

 and that the neighboring forest presented a scene of great con 

 fusion many trees standing inclined in every direction, and 

 others having their trunks and branches broken. He also saw 

 hundreds of deep chasms remaining in the alluvial soil, which 

 were produced, according to the inhabitants, by the bursting of 

 the earth, which rose in great undulations, and discharged vast 

 volumes of water, sand, and coaly matter, thrown up as high as 

 the tops of the trees. As the shocks lasted throughout a period 

 of three months, the country people remarked that, in given dis 

 tricts, there were certain prevailing directions in which these fis 

 sures opened, arid they accordingly felled the tallest trees, making 

 them fall at right angles to the direction of the chasms. By 

 stationing themselves on these, they often escaped being swal 

 lowed up when the earth opened beneath them. Some of the 

 shocks were perpendicular, while others, much more desolating, 

 were horizontal, or moved along like great waves. 



Before I left New Orleans, Mr. Bringier, the engineer, related 

 to me that he was on horseback near New Madrid, in 1811, 

 when some of the severest shocks were experienced, and that, as 

 the waves advanced, he saw the trees bend down, and often, the 

 instant afterward, when in the act of recovering their position, 

 meet the boughs of other trees similarly inclined, so as to become 

 interlocked, being prevented from righting themselves again. The 

 transit of the wave through the woods was marked by the crash 

 ing noise of countless branches, first heard on one side and then 

 on the other. At the same time powerful jets of water, mixed 

 with sand, mud, and bituminous coaly shale, were cast up with 

 such force, that both horse and rider might have perished, had 

 the undulating ground happened to burst immediately beneath 

 them. He also told me that circular cavities, called sink-holes, 

 were formed where the principal fountains of mud and water 

 were thrown up. 



Hearing that some of these cavities still existed near the town, 



