178 SLIGHT SHOCK FELT. [CHAP. XXXIII. 



took me to see several fissures still open, which had been caused 

 by the undulatory movement of the ground, some of them jagged, 

 others even and straight. I traced two of them continuously for 

 more than half a mile, and found that a few were parallel ; but, 

 on the whole, they varied greatly in direction, some being ten 

 and others forty-five degrees west of north. I might easily have 

 mistaken them for artificial trenches, if my companion had not 

 known them within his recollection to have been &quot; as deep as 

 wells.&quot; Sand and black shale were strewed along their edges. 

 They were most of them from two to four feet wide, and five or 

 six feet deep ; but the action of rains, frost, and occasional inun 

 dations, and above all the leaves of the forest blown into them 

 every autumn in countless numbers, have done much to fill them up. 



Continuing my ride, I came to the house and farm of Mr. Love, 

 who had long resided in this district, and he took me to part of 

 the forest, on the borders of what is called the &quot; sunk country,&quot; 

 where all the trees of a date prior to 1811, although standing 

 erect and entire, are dead and leafless. They are chiefly oaks 

 and walnuts, with trunks three or four feet in diameter, and many 

 of them 200 years old. They are supposed to have been killed 

 by the loosening of the roots during the repeated undulations 

 which passed through the soil for three months in succession. 

 The higher level plain, where these dead trees stand, terminates 

 abruptly toward the Bayou St. John, and the sudden descent 

 of eight or ten feet throughout an area four or five miles long, 

 and fifty or sixty broad, was caused, my informant assured me, 

 by the earthquake. At the lower level are seen cypresses and 

 cotton- wood, and other trees which delight in wet ground, all 

 newer than 1812. I was told that there are some places where 

 the descent from the upper level to that of the sunk country is 

 not less than twenty and even thirty feet. In part of this sunk 

 ground I saw not only dead oaks and hickory still erect, but aged 

 gum-trees also and cypresses (Cupressus disticha). 



While I was riding with Mr. Love he stopped his horse, and 

 asked me if I did not feel the shock of an earthquake. When 

 my attention was called to it, I fancied I had perceived it, but 

 was not sure. He said they were frequent, although he had not 



