CLIMATE. 43 
cracks in the earth. A large fissure was made in the western 
part of the town of San Bernardino. At Fort Tejon the shock 
threw down nearly all the buildings; snapped off large trees 
close to the ground, and overthrew others, tearing them up by 
the roots; and tore the earth apart in a fissure twenty feet 
wide and forty miles long, the sides of which rent then came 
_ together with so much violence, that the earth was forced up 
in a ridge ten feet wide and several feet high. At Reed’s 
ranch, not far from Fort Tejon, a house was thrown down, 
and a woman in it killed. 
In September, 1812, on a Sunday, an earthquake threw 
down the Mission Church at San Juan Capistrano, in latitude 
38° 20’, and thirty persons were killed. The church at Santa 
Inez, in Santa Barbara county, was thrown down on the same 
day; but the shock, according to report, was an hour later 
than that at San Juan Capistrano, and. there was nobody in the * 
church when it fell. At the same time the sea receded a long 
distance from the ordinary place of the water’s edge on the 
beach of Santa Barbara; and the people there, knowing that 
it would soon rush upon the shore, fled to the higher ground, 
and by that means alone saved their lives. These reports 
made about this earthquake of 1812, to Dr. J. B. Trask, by 
old residents, have never been contradicted, though published 
six or cight years ago. 
The old Mission Church at Santa Clara was thrown down 
by an earthquake in 1818. On the 15th of May, 1851, a severe 
shock was felt in San Francisco. Windows were broken; mer- 
chandise was thrown down from shelves in stores; and vessels 
in the harbor rolled heavily. On the 26th of November, 1858, 
nearly every brick building in San José was injured by an 
earthquake. On the 3d of July, 1861, Amador valley, in Ala- 
meda county, was severely shaken. Adobe houses were seri- 
ously injured, chimneys toppled down, furniture was flung 
from side to side of the houses and much broken, and men in 
the fields were thrown down. 
A severe shock of an earthquake was felt at Fort Yuma and 
r 
